Private Nuisance
by puzzlepuzzle
Summary: A woman living independently in Heliopolis, Cagalli sues with an unlikely cause of action. Athrun's her slightly sardonic and slightly unwilling, but very smitten lawyer. And as all good lawyers do, he keeps certain things secret from his client.
1. If it weren't for double standards

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.**

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A/N: Hi all! Generally, this story involves the same characters from GS/GSD and hopefully some of the more familiar quirks. The setting's about the same with space colonies and all that, but without the war and the concept of Coordinators and conflict between them and the Naturals. Most of the events do allude to the original story, so have fun spotting those! As a personal note, I'm really excited about this new story, especially since it'd be nice to have a break from The Isle and its angst! Thanks for reading and I hope you like this!

Also, check out the poster-fanart that I've done for Private Nuisance. The link is featured on my profile.

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Private Nuisance

Defined as:

Unlawful damage to property or

Substantial or continuous interference with the use or quiet enjoyment of property

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_"What would be regarded as a nuisance in Belgravia square would not necessarily be regarded as a nuisance in Bermondsey."_

_Thesiger LJ in Sturges v Bridgman (1879) LR 11 Ch D 852_

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**Chapter 1: If it weren't for double standards, nobody would have standards at all**

* * *

As the earliest doses of morning scattered through the barely-drawn windows of the cafe, Athrun squinted while flipping through the file. Had the sole waiter in the morose-looking café cared to comment, the sole customer sitting in an arguably anti-social corner was unconsciously putting a good ten years to his face.

The café had only been opened fifteen minutes ago and it was empty. If the seldom-seen owner of the café had hoped to catch a morning crowd, he had come to the wrong area to set up an early-bird business. Granted, Heliopolis' central business district was becoming busy even at this hour, but this street was the periphery of the core area and its commercial activities. People generally came here less and the rent was cheaper that way.

In fact, the sullenness of the place and the cafe never deterred Athrun, particularly because he liked the peace and quiet from six-thirty to seven. Opening the office at seven was his usual role anyway—he was a morning person, reliable with keys, and the sort who got mildly offended when people were not punctual. His partner, Dearka Elsman was definitely not like that. And so for Athrun, this café was a good place to wait, mostly because the sole waiter was too lax to chase out someone who never ordered anything but always sat there reading papers and files.

From time to time however, Athrun liked to glance up. It wasn't so much a habit as much as the need for a break from Vino's garbled handwriting. While Elsman & Reid's only office assistant was quite an efficient chap, his shorthand resembled experiments with apes and their abilities to control their thumbs—or lack thereof. By right, Vino ought to have been the one reporting the earliest to work and opening the office, but Athrun had employed Vino for long enough to conclude that like Dearka, Vino wasn't much of a morning person either.

As usual, the morning showed some kind of prelude to the activities of the day. These people were bathed in the pinkish shades of the rising sun, and they scurried along, moving past others and being overtaken at points by others- the first seen cogs in a machine of a thousand cogs. That machine was going to start soon.

Of course, Athrun noted wryly, nobody turned to the corner of this café. It was in a rather obscure corner of the street. Also, they'd probably either packed their breakfast or had some other cheerier place in mind. That, and the waiter had the most unfriendly expression on his face as he polished the same glass for the tenth time.

It was a strange, daily occurrence for Athrun to stride into the café, ignoring the waiter who ignored him until Athrun was ready to leave. He usually left upon the first customer's arrival, and it was always some tired-looking sod who usually came in at seven.

Today, however, Athrun was waiting for someone. He glanced at his watch, recalling the brief conversation he'd had over the phone, and decided to order something for once. It seemed only fair, Athrun thought, since they were using the Cosmos Café as a meeting point.

Raising his hand slightly, he cleared his throat. The waiter looked over—a surly youth with a crew-cut that suggested he'd been doing jail-time.

"What do you want?"

"Er- I'd like a coffee." Athrun tried not to feel like he was being a liability by actually being a paying customer for once. "Thanks." He looked down, prepared to return to his files until the coffee came.

But the waiter put down the glass that he had been obsessed with and took a step closer. "Wait, aren't you the feller featured in the list of Highly Eligible Bachelors?"

Athrun flinched, considered the options of escaping, and thought about the coffee he'd just ordered and the person that he was supposed to meet here. He then looked down stubbornly and mumbled, "No."

The waiter peered at him for a few seconds, then looked to the magazine rack that Athrun had not even looked at before this. He proceeded to take a few moments to fetch a particular magazine, flip through, and then gawk at his customer.

"Looks like you!" The waiter was holding up the magazine. "You're the guy—!"

Throughout all of this, Athrun was trying not to sink under the table.

Recently, Athrun had been named an eligible bachelor in what he thought of as a bourgeoisie gossip magazine. It was the same magazine that the rest of society regarded as a la mode to high society. Sadly, the disparity between his disdain for the Heliopolis Tattler and everyone else's reliance on its gossipy was stark.

Of course, he had a reasonable excuse for being slightly miffed over having his photograph taken and put into The Heliopolis Tattler. Firstly, he did not read what rich businessmen's kept women read, and he sure as hell did not know what high society expected of him. For sure, Athrun was rattled over having his photograph taken without his notice, and he was upset that some trace of him would be seen at all.

Moreover, Athrun did not want to be seen or heard outside his work, and he certainly wasn't pleased at this intrusion to his general pattern of living. As he felt the waiter stare openly, he also felt his ears burning, and he was glad that his hair covered what must have been scarlet by now.

"You don't really look like that…" The waiter was comparing the photograph to the real-life Athrun. He read a choice few sentences aloud. "Twenty-eight and successful; ambitious and highly driven with the face of a winner..."

"Like I said," Athrun mumbled, trying to look inconspicuous. "That isn't me."

The same starkness marked the disparity between the glossy picture of himself in the magazine and the role of him as a worker slaving now, and it struck him that it was entirely plausible that the editors hadn't seen him in his workplace before. Unfortunately, there was only this waiter who knew the truth—that one of Heliopolis' Eligible Bachelors had dark circles and muttered incoherently under his breath while working on his files.

In fact, Athrun realised, everyone who'd seen this list had probably envisioned him to be in a dress shirt sipping champagne with his little finger sticking out for every moment of his life. They'd snapped a shot of him appearing at Lacus' Clyne's gala charity performance. But the truth was that he'd turned up only because she requested. Besides, he'd been highly reluctant to go except that there was a social obligation to his friend and one-time fiancée.

Eager to look away from the ogling waiter, Athrun turned away and lifted the curtain slightly to stare outside the shop, hoping that the waiter would catch his drift. The density of people was building up a bit as their reporting times drew nearer. In their corporate outfits, they looked like a private army. Amongst these few people though, Athrun caught sight of a person moving across the small road.

This was partially because the youth's fringe glinted beyond the boundary of a cap in the light. From here, the person seemed to be a blonde young man in jeans and a casual shirt—certainly not the archetype of the corporate worker.

Athrun squinted, looking at him a little more. As if the contrast between the casualness of the clothes wasn't enough, the youth was moving very fast and against the others. He was elbowing people out of the way and seemed to pop out from the people who moved in and out of the viewing window's path. It might have been simply how this youth was struggling against the growing flow of commuters, running even, towards the general direction of the cafe.

Curious now, Athrun leaned forward, his breath near enough to mist slightly on the cool glass.

Even from inside the shop, he could hear a shout.

It was enough for him to leap up from his seat, push slightly against the waiter who had been creeping nearer, and rush out of there. Perhaps, Athrun had instinctively wanted to get away from the waiter—but of course, the shout would have made any reasonable person help. Clearly, there were few of such people in the throngs of the morning crowd,

"Stop!" Someone was shouting. "Thief! Thief!"

Quickly now, Athrun pushed past the people who were still inching forwards to their offices, uncaring of whoever who was shouting and whoever who was getting away. Cursing under his breath as he raced, Athrun tried to swim his way through the crowd, and finally caught up.

Grabbing at a hand, he tugged hard and felt something say 'Oof!'

"Don't you run!" He growled, slamming his weight against the person's. Suddenly, they were alone in a street, and he realized he had successfully tackled the thief. Congratulating himself, he pressed the boy's face to the floor, and he said harshly, "There's a police station nearby. We should take a trip there."

"Let me go!" He heard a muffled cry from under the cap he was pushing to the ground. It was a deep voice, but of course, it was also muffled.

"Stop struggling, you punk!" He said viciously, slamming the thief's shoulder hard.

Behind him, he could hear shuffling footsteps, and he looked and saw it was a tiny old lady trying to catch up. The pickpocketed person was probably catching up, and the thief he'd caught was struggling madly, trying to get his hands out from the grip that Athrun had established.

"Don't struggle!" Athrun barked again. He used more force, and a squeal was issued from the thief. "You're disgusting—you'd steal from someone like that?"

"I said let me go, you buffoon!" The voice was irritated and something of a cry. Athrun cocked his ears. A very female cry, in fact.

The pickpocketed person had caught up. Panting, the old lady shook her head and wheezed, "You got the wrong one."

Athrun, still on his knees, jerked back in shock.

Up sprang the youth, face pink with indignation and eyes crackling with anger. "You're an idiot! Why'd you have to tackle me like that?"

Athrun sputtered, trying to stand up.

The old lady was shaking her head. "This kind person here was helping me go after the thief! The thief would have been caught, had you not made that mistake!" She sighed, looking at her slit shopping bag. "Nonetheless… it was good of you to help."

But Athrun was barely listening. Instead, he stood and stared at the rather disheveled person that he'd tackled and been rather rough to. The person in front of him—the same youth who'd fought against the crowd—was distinctively…

"You're a girl?"

She gaped back at him.

"A girl…" He mumbled, massaging his temples.

"What did you think I was?" She demanded. Most of her hair was still tucked beneath her cap and she was panting slightly from the exertion, her breath puffs of white in the crisp morning air. She wasn't wearing a coat or scarf, and she had begun stamping her feet and rubbing her arms to keep warm.

He looked helplessly at the old woman who was clucking her tongue, and then back to the girl he'd shoved and wrestled to the ground. "Er—," He tried to find a way to explain himself. "Sorry about that—,"

The girl glared at him ferociously, then turned to the old lady. "Come on. I heard that there's a police station nearby." She looked at Athrun with great distaste, then took the old lady's arm and marched past him.

* * *

From the safety of the café, Athrun really felt like digging himself into a hole and not coming out. Exasperated with himself and the turn of events, he eyed the cold coffee near his elbow and tried to ignore the still ogling waiter.

He sighed, preparing to look away and get back to his files. His daily eye exercise was over. Besides, he noted wryly, he had probably expanded quite some energy tackling the wrong person, who'd turned out to be one of those butch-types.

Thankfully, he did not have to wait very much longer. The door opened and the tinkling bell attached to it sounded.

"Well, how's our Heliopolis eligible bachelor doing?" A voice sounded behind him.

"Kira," Athrun said warningly, getting up from his chair to see his childhood friend move into the cubicle. Warmly, he shook Kira Yamato's hand, then embraced him. He lowered his voice, noting the way the waiter was still staring over from his corner. "As glad as I am to meet with you, you better not rub salt in the wound."

"Wound?" Kira protested, taking a seat with his eyes twinkling. "What do you mean wound?"

And Kira moved to fetch a magazine from a rack and put it on the table that they both returned to. Athrun fought the urge to roll his eyes—how was it that the waiter to Kira noticed the magazine but not he? He should have taken the chance to burn the magazine before Kira had arrived.

"Would you look at that?" Kira said admiringly. "My childhood friend looks like a million bucks here!"

"Please." Athrun said archly. "All the photographs have been doctored. The editors have never seen any of these bachelors being normal humans before." He gestured to his files. "They clearly thought that the dark-circles in the undoctored photograph were a trick of the light."

Kira was still flipping through, whistling low under his breath. "And this was at Lacus' concert three weeks before? The one I missed recently?"

"Yes." Athrun said moodily.

During that time, the paparazzi had gotten a shot of him when he'd been stupid enough to wander around the gardens framing the concert hall.

"You look angsty." Kira was trying not laugh as he stared at the photograph. "Very nice, indeed. I bet the girls were swooning in your office and in court."

"You know," Athrun told him wryly, "I had been considering the various ways to sue the pants off my client's opponent at that precise moment. Now stop talking, and I'll buy you breakfast."

Unwillingly, he glanced at the photograph that Kira was looking at. Indeed, the picture had turned out to depict him looking broodingly past the camera; a shot that had apparently set a thousand female hearts aflutter, as Kira had claimed. It also hadn't mattered that Athrun had been having trouble digesting the rock cookies that he'd consumed over the reception—the intent look on his face that had been captured somehow managed to intrigue people.

"The writer described you as being always impeccably dressed." Kira crowed, reading out excerpts of the article that the waiter lurking in the corner was clearly delighting in.

Athrun scoffed and tried to signal the waiter over but failed to. The youth was plainly ignoring him, preferring to dry the already bone-dry dishes. Muttering under his breath, he tried again.

"Well?" Kira teased.

"Please," Athrun told him. "If I was so magnetic, the waiter would have come over a long time ago. And I have five of the same suits from the same tailor and in the same cut." He shook his head, still trying to get a waiter to come over. "Didn't they realize that solicitors have the most limited wardrobes in the whole world?"

Certainly, it hadn't mattered to the editors that he had been wearing a suit he always wore to work to Lacus Clyne's concert. The writers had complimented him for his consistent style when the reality was that he had nothing else to wear. And this was all because he hadn't bothered changing out after he'd left work to catch her concert.

"Nonetheless," Kira pointed out, "The champagne you're swirling in this photograph makes you look really…" He paused, trying not to laugh. "Cultured."

Athrun gave him a blank look, still valiantly trying to signal the waiter over. "That was apple juice. I didn't drink anything else during her performance."

Kira blanched. "No way!"

"In short, " Athrun said drily, "It was nothing like what the Heliopolis Tattler made me out to be."

Studying his friend, Kira supposed he agreed. Athrun's competency was distinctively sardonic, his quiet ways less courteous than one would suppose, and his dedication to his job making him remarkably crabby in the mornings.

Probably, Kira realized, Athrun had laughed himself silly while reading the write-up about him.

"So how's work now?" Athrun was asking, clearly hoping for a change of topic.

Laughing, Kira grinned. "We're making headway with the subjects. The dolphins are really more sophisticated than I expected. They really communicate in the most interesting way—probably with more information within a few clicks and whistles than what we can translate right now."

"Well, if an award-winning marine biologist is telling me that," Athrun said with a straight face, "I'll change my opinion that dolphins are little more than gay sharks."

Kira chortled. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that from the lawyer who brought fame to Elsman & Reid by taking on Rau Le Creuset's case and suing on his behalf for unfair discrimination."

"Dearka deserves the credit too," Athrun told Kira. "I'm just glad that we won the case in the end. But yes, I do take the point that Mr. Le Creuset was…" He trailed off, thinking of his one-time client.

"Very, very gay."

They looked at each other, their lips twitching as the waiter served Kira coffee.

"So when is this sister of yours coming?" Athrun finally asked. He looked at his watch. "Not that I'm in a rush today or anything, but you did say that she was quite a stickler for punctuality."

"Oh yes," Kira sat up. "She did tell me that she would be coming a bit late and that she was sorry about it. She got held up, apparently."

"Traffic," Athrun said understandably. "That's precisely why I come early in the morning—I hate having to fight other cars." He looked apologetically at Kira. "I would have opened the office to meet you and your sister, Kira, but it only opens officially at seven-thirty."

"No matter at all," Kira told him. "She'll be here soon." He leaned over, dropping his voice as if he was afraid someone would hear. "Between us, Athrun, I'm really thankful that you agreed to listen to her on my behalf. I know I didn't really explain the details over the phone, but I just think she has to explain it for herself. She's the sort of person who doesn't listen once she gets fixed on an idea. I don't really know what she's up to, but I thought it'd be best-,"

He trailed off, holding up a hand almost warningly as the bell on the door tinkled again and the steps of someone striding in echoed. Athrun watched as Kira got to his feet, and almost instinctively, he rose too.

But as he came face to face with the person, he felt his smile slipping off his face.

The girl in front of him was apparently going through the same formation too. Her smile was disappearing so rapidly that Athrun could almost hear something smashing on the floor.

All the same, Athrun found it in him to extend a hand gingerly, even though she did not seem to want to take it. Her hands were folded around her and she was shivering a little, as if nursing a flu.

But for some reason, Kira's twin glared at him, then surprised him by taking his hand with a deadly firm handshake that nearly rattled the bones in his entire hand, not to mention his arm. Her gaze was direct and fearless, and even when her other arm was still draped across her chest because of the cold she was presumably susceptible to, her hand was very warm in his. Was his cafe really that chilly, he wondered, or was she particularly vulnerable to slightly lower temperatures?

"Hello." Athrun said unsurely, suddenly seeing the resemblance in the face of the would-be stranger when she was standing right next to Kira. If he had only managed to button his coat when he'd stood up, he wasn't sure what to do with his hands now.

She looked at him unsmilingly, not saying anything.

"Let me do the introductions then. Athrun, this is my twin, Cagalli." Kira said mildly, quite unaware of anything that had happened in the previous hour. "I'm sure she's pleased to meet you."

* * *

Five minutes of awkward fumbling and ordering of coffees later, Athrun looked curiously at the person seated opposite him. Kira was seated next to his sibling, and he seemed to feel more amusement than Athrun could muster the nerve to feel.

Kira's twin looked a bit rattled, a bit flustered, a little unkempt, a little embarrassed, a little defiant, a little of everything thrown together. Part of it, Athrun thought, was definitely his fault. But at the same time, he realized that she was probably always losing at cards— all her expressions seemed to appear like flashing lights on her face. She looked at Athrun now; pink in the cheeks and with the irritation that he recognized immediately.

"Sorry about that," Kira apologized, as if for a misbehaving pet that had no way of knowing what it had done or how to make amends for it. "Er- she's not much of a morning person. That's why she's late too."

Before Athrun could stammer anything, the girl's fist met Kira's arm squarely, and Kira winced, massaging and grinning sheepishly to Athrun. Athrun widened his eyes, staring at the two who seemed to be but could not possibly be twins. While Kira was formally dressed, this girl seemed to be the anti-thesis of what women spent on time and effort before leaving the house.

He couldn't be blamed, Athrun tried to assure himself, for calling her a punk. While she'd magically appeared in this café wearing a gorgeous cashmere scarf and coat that he hadn't seen on her previously, she was still wearing that oversized shirt and jeans that he'd seen and tackled her to the ground in.

"Just so you know, Cagalli," Kira told her cheerily, "Athrun and I go a long way back—even if we did lose contact at some point. Isn't that right, Athrun?"

"Yes." Athrun said meekly.

She looked at him defiantly, despite how her fringe was long and falling into her eyes. Her eyeliner was a little smudged—possibly from how he'd smushed her face to the ground— and her blonde hair shorter than what he'd imagined most blondes would maintain. More obviously, her mouth was pursed in an unfriendly grimace. Her hair was brilliantly-coloured, so bright that it seemed strange on a woman who did not wear makeup to make use of it. He wondered if it would be too obvious he was checking for dark roots if he stood up suddenly.

Before this, she'd had on that chocolate-colored newsboy cap that had made her look androgynous. But there was no mistaking that Kira's twin was female, now that her hair was down and the cap sitting on some corner of the table.

Kira had noticed his twin shivering. "Is it that cold, Cagalli?"

She spoke for the first time in that café. "I left my coat in the car before this-," Her voice was husky, presumably from her cold. She trailed off, looking strangely at Athrun, who tried to look elsewhere. "I was in a hurry and I left my things in the car. Didn't get back until a bit later to fetch those."

"I see," Kira said, not seeing at all. "Well, Athrun, now that we're settled, ask away."

"Right." His voice was rather weak. "Ms. Yamato, Kira said you had something you'd like advice on."

"No!" Her voice was an exclamation that caught all of them by surprise. "I don't want him dealing with this!"

"Cagalli," Kira said to her in an almost warning tone, "He's a good friend of mine, and I've heard from lots of people that he's an excellent solicitor. You know about that recent case, don't you?"

Cagalli raised her eyes to his, pursing her lips still, saying nothing. Athrun swallowed, feeling incredibly inadequate there and then.

"The Le Creuset and Alster case," Kira supplied helpfully and a bit awkwardly. "It was featured a lot in the newspapers. The case where a gay man was being unfairly discriminated— he was asked to leave the George Alster shopping complex because he was gay."

That case had made the parties involved and their solicitors mini-celebrities for a while. Athrun had had to tolerate a whole slew of crazy neighbors trying to snap photographs of him every time he left his apartment. In fact, plenty of them had come up to him and asked if he was gay as well— whether he'd identified with Rau Le Creuset and therefore agreed to take on that case.

But the attention was unsavory as well as extreme. It amused and bemused Athrun to no end. Someone scratched his car with crude depictions and incredibly ungrammatical insults, even though Athrun was as straight as an arrow. The case had sparked off a huge controversy because of the flamboyant parties involved, alongside arguably dangerous precedent he'd convinced the judges to take. Surely, this girl had read or heard something about it? After all, even Kira, who lived in the Plants, had heard of this.

"Ms. Yamato, is there any thing I can help with?" Athrun said politely, making sure he kept his skepticism to himself. Glancing at Cagalli Yamato again, and her rather chic exterior that she'd somehow gained, he was not sure what to make of her.

"I think he can help you on this." Kira said tensely to her, patting her shoulder fondly like she was his favorite aunt who needed his help to walk. And he whispered to Athrun, "I sure as hell can't help her in anything else."

Athrun's brows shot up, despite himself. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but he decided to begin his sales pitch.

"We offer litigation services, both in the analysis and research and also representation," He said confidently. "From start to finish. This firm's small, but it's up-and-coming and we can guarantee your money's worth, whether in defense or claims you want to advance against someone else."

He looked at Kira, who was staring at his twin who looked rather unmoved by Athrun's efforts.

"If you agree," Athrun said, getting into the swing of things as his solicitor-façade kicked over, "It's just a matter of settling when you need to go to court, and we'll take care of the rest."

Suddenly, Cagalli shifted, and Athrun stared at her.

When she spoke, Cagalli surprised him with her articulation and her crisp tone that he hadn't noticed before this. To be fair to her though, she had been fuming when he'd tackled her, and of course he had been too flustered to notice anything beyond the fact that she was female and not the thief.

There was a sudden elegance to her clear intonation and the way she looked fearlessly at him, and he found himself noticing it almost invariably. Her husky voice surprised him, for her enunciation was very clear. "My surname is Yula, not Yamato."

She had a very authoritative voice, Athrun noticed, and her posture righted as she looked straight at him in the eye, making her look suddenly very composed and compelling. Suddenly, her outfit didn't seem like she'd hastily put together at all- it seemed to become her. He was forcibly reminded of a very clever, very weathered alley cat who knew that once the coat was buttoned, what was being worn inside disappeared anyway.

He shook his head, mildly impressed, smiling a little more now. "My apologies." He looked at her meaningfully, but she did not seem to catch his drift. Sighing inwardly, he asked, "Ms. Yula, what is your grievance?"

"Well, I'm glad you asked." Cagalli Yula said pertly, looking a bit haughtily at him. He was struck by the assertion in her tone. Gone were the traces of her clumsiness and embarrassment that she'd displayed before hand. She leaned forward a little, her eyes boring hole through his. "It would be quite accurate for me to say that I don't trust solicitors."

And then she crossed her legs elegantly even if she was only wearing jeans, looking forcefully at Kira in a manner that suggested she would roast him later. Her eyes were a very interesting shade, Athrun noticed. Gold and flecked with amber or maybe even sepia. Looking at both of them, Athrun noticed the resemblance again, although it hadn't been clear at first.

"Is that so," Athrun countered, hiding his flustered thoughts and smiling winsomely. Suddenly, he felt like he needed to win, or drive past that car that'd cut into his lane. It was strange, because he was neither on the road nor in the court. He felt his fists clenching below the table, and he suddenly wanted her to beg him to represent her. It wasn't just how he'd slipped up before this—it was how annoyed he was suddenly feeling. "Ms. Yula, I can assure you that we don't give anything but the best services to every single client that signs us on, and it's a matter of you finding the right people you can trust."

"There's only one person in this room, who I can trust to handle my problem." Cagalli looked daringly at him. "And that's me."

Her twin blinked owlishly, clearly the one behind the idea of getting her here at all.

"Is that right, Ms. Yula?" Athrun said patiently, smiling insincerely. He appraised her but she tilted her chin defiantly, trying to stare him down.

The nerve!

"I'm not going to waste our time," Cagalli said firmly. She unfolded her arms, taking her bag into her lap. "I'm going to tell you the facts and what I've recorded down, and I want you to tell me if I have a claim at all."

So she was the no-nonsense type then, Athrun realized.

She drew open her tote and took out a notebook. At the same time, he noticed that the bag was an expensive looking one, and it was branded, as was the leather notebook. The coat he saw, was simple but well-cut, and he was quite sure it was an expensive item too. Even if the beret looked inexpensive, next to the coat, it looked nice enough.

Undeniably, the impact of seeing her stride into this café had certainly hit him like a cartload of bricks dropped from a five-storey high building. Come to think of it, Athrun realized, the last time he'd paid close attention to a woman's clothes had been at his mother's funeral. The thought of that made a wry smile creep onto his face as he recalled his trysts with girls that had really involved anything except clothes.

"I live here," Cagalli said, interrupting his thoughts by pointing to the address she passed to him on a scribbled note. She'd drawn a little map of the place, and staring at it, Athrun suspected he knew what was going on already.

"Someone came prepared," He commented, and she snorted, making him look up in surprise. While Athrun didn't think much of a woman's company and had nothing much in common with women except that they all wanted a good romp sometimes, he'd never imagined a female to snort openly.

"Well, I wasn't going to watch while you wasted my time." She said aggressively, making him wince inwardly and curl his fists. But outwardly, he maintained his polite if slightly impersonal smile while seething inside.

Her voice was steely. "There's a building that's going to come up next month, over here." She moved to the edge of her seat and jabbed a finger. She pointed at a rectangle she'd sketched, which frighteningly enough, looked nothing like a rectangle.

"I see." Athrun stared at the diagram. Inwardly, he wondered if she and Vino would get along.

"They started two weeks ago." Cagalli told him with a clear trace of bitterness. "I never knew of anything, but I've been suffering migraines since two weeks ago because of that hullaballoo they've kicked up with their construction."

"It's an upper-class area," Athrun said slowly, looking back at her. He wondered if she was some kind of property developer or a housing agent by profession. "Were there any other complaints?"

Without answering his question, Cagalli flipped the paper she'd handed him to the other side, handing it back to him. Her voice suggested great determination- cow-sense and bull-stubbornness mixed, Athrun suspected.

"I've been checking out other sites." Cagalli said flatly, moving on with god-knows-what was in her head and ignoring his question. "And it seems to me that the Heliopolis city council is very stringent on noise pollution because of the tourist dollar. They've been trying to get old folks to move here for retirement, not to mention biology research companies and laboratories."

"That's right." Kira chimed in.

Kira, Athrun was aware, alternated between the Plants and the space colony of Heliopolis for that precise kind of research. He'd been working on a deep-sea mobile that could track dolphin signals across oceans as part of his job for the past months. Cagalli however, did not spare a look at her brother as she continued. It was almost like she was ignoring her brother on purpose.

"I doubt they'll allow such a noisy conflagration to exist when they've been marketing Heliopolis as a clean, green, quiet, something-or-the-other-waffle space city." She said impertinently. "That's the list of buildings they've given orders to pipe down to-,"

Athrun stared at the long list she pointed out to him. She'd scribbled it in what seemed to be very hurried, artistic but impossible-to-read penmanship. Either that, or she had somehow met Vino and convinced him or a monkey to copy out alphabets for her.

"If they allow this building, it will be obvious that they're using double standards and I don't think they'll want everyone talking about that." Cagalli declared, obviously unaware of his only marginally related thoughts. "I think the Heliopolis city council will have a great blow to their reputation and image-planning if they let this particular building be constructed. It's just not congruent with their standards of city planning so far- noise pollution and dust problems wise."

He looked at her, shaking his head. "If not for double standards, I don't think I'd have any at all, Ms. Yula."

"Look, that's you, because you're a solicitor." She said impatiently, missing his point entirely while somehow aiming a jab at him.

"Well, Ms. Yula," Athrun said frostily, "Do you mind when your brother calls you in the middle of the night to ask where's the best place to buy doughnuts?"

Both siblings threw him an incredulous look but Cagalli managed to answer. "No, not really."

"Well, if a complete stranger like myself did, would you mind?"

She swallowed. "Look, this is ridiculous. I know what you're trying to get at." Cagalli threw up her hands in apparent frustration, and he bristled. "But we're talking about a city council here. Surely, you realize that? Or did you assume that everybody had double standards in the way that solicitors live from day to day?"

"I'm going to ignore that assertion and focus on the point here." He said mildly, trying to keep the little flare of temper in him. It surprised him that he was even feeling annoyance. The last time that had happened had probably been last year, when they'd lost a case he'd worked particularly hard on. "What I'm trying to say, Ms. Yula, is that everyone has double standards. That's how we get on with life- for solicitors, city councils, governments, factory workers and I daresay even teachers when it comes to different pupils."

"Not for me." Cagalli said fiercely, looking like she'd sock him if he disagreed. And that was precisely made him continue- the idea that she'd dare to even consider socking him in the face. Kira was looking very amused with what the conversation was turning into.

But he wouldn't let her get away with that little argument she'd thrown in, Athrun decided. He couldn't because he simply wouldn't.

"Look," He said sharply to Cagalli, "I'm not sure about you, but what kind of detergent do you use for your clothes, if you use any at all?"

She glared at him, finally taking the bait. "That depends what kind it is."

"See?" He said triumphantly. "It all depends. And that's precisely what you're trying to fight! You can't fight the fact that the city council advertises, _advertises-_," He repeated, "-a clean, quiet, green little place for old folks, and the fact that they have to create those spaces by clearing things and making some noise!"

"But they also have rules that the noise shouldn't be above what's necessary," She said determinedly. "And that they uphold their own standards no matter where the building is."

Athrun stared at Cagalli Yula and took a pamphlet to flip through it quickly. He couldn't keep the cynicism from his voice. "I agree that they have a rule— by-laws, in fact, for general noise levels. Those are supposed to apply no matter where the building is going to be, but that doesn't mean the noise levels won't be dependent on the size or kind of building the council permits."

"That's not right." She said firmly.

"But Ms. Yula, do you realize that this building you are so against is the next hangar-cum-showroom for sports cars? And did you notice that thousands of space tourists are supposed to come here to look at the cars?" He looked directly at her. "And did you even know that that the city council approved of this project and courted the company to set up that show-room building in the first place?"

Athrun thought that would show her who was in charge here. He sat back, fighting back a smile because he thought he had bested her. But she sat up a little straighter, those strangely golden, almond-edged eyes flashing dangerously again.

"Oh don't be ridiculous," Cagalli said sharply, "Of course I checked out the place, hoping for an explanation as to why my windows were vibrating like flaccid jelly every time the drills started! I'm not just a tenant, I have the fee simple—I own that unit in that apartment! I have _locus standi_, as it's called, and I have the right to care about the noise! The noise is everywhere— isn't that interfering with my use and enjoyment of the land?"

"Impressive," he admitted, not so much at the vibrating windows assertion, but the fact that she'd bothered looking into so much. "I haven't found a client who ever did research on her own."

"I can't leave it to you solicitors, can I?" She said bluntly, looking at him straight in the eye. "I'd get this done about three years after I was sent into my grave."

Athrun found his lips curling slightly. She was feistier than he'd expected, and from the looks of it, Kira was rather used to it. Her twin was staring at the diagram and as he lifted his eyes to meet Athrun's, Athrun thought he saw a twinkle in them.

Squaring his shoulders, Athrun said firmly. "Ms. Yula, may I know what damage you've suffered to that building? Any property damage? Those windows that vibrated- did any crack?"

"None."

"Dust?"

"Not really."

"Absence of light?"

"Not really."

Athrun was exhausting all the possible kinds of damage her property could have suffered, and his smirk grew wider and wider even though he fought to keep his voice from becoming aggressive. Her case was becoming increasingly less easy than what she'd expected. A losing case, that is. A no-case, as he called it.

However, Cagalli did not look upset but only squared her shoulders even in that oversized. "I'm sure it's a solicitor's jobs to waste the client's time, but as I already said right from the start, I'm not here for anything much. I only need you to tell me with the given information, what chances I have of winning?"

"That depends what you want to win, Ms. Yula," Athrun said, ignoring the smarting feeling of his pride being hurt. It was true that solicitors did earn on an hourly basis, but for her to bring that right out and to shove it under his nose like Dearka's magazine- how utterly preposterous!

"Frankly," Cagalli said flatly, interrupting this thoughts, "I just want them out of my way. I don't need compensation for the number of pills I've been popping every day and the irritation I get from these clowns. I just want them to stop building that darn showroom and find some other place they can screw around with."

"An injunction then," He said calmly. "An action to get them to stop."

"Yes, I know what that is," Cagalli said firmly, making him feel suddenly like he was back in the classroom, learning the different types of injunctions available to claimants.

She was looking straight back at him. "I just want to know if there's even half a percent of success that I can get it. If possible, an interlocutory injunction."

Athrun was impressed. He was definitely impressed, although only grudgingly.

"I don't want them to continue at all, much less have that land to build anything. I'll have you know that solicitors don't impress me, and I'm not about to put all this in your hands." Her eyes narrowed. She seemed to be getting antsier and antsier by the minute, and Athrun wondered why he had the misfortune of getting on her wrong side so early in the morning.

To defuse the tension, Athrun looked down and studied the little map she'd drawn, frowning a bit. All in all, he couldn't resist a barb of his own. "Objectively, it's a bit of a long shot. The building doesn't seem to be particularly near your apartment. Or is it right next to your home?"

She stared, "Isn't it clear from the diagram that I'm right next to it?"

"Well, at least from this exceedingly sophisticated map, I'd say it's difficult to determine anything." Athrun said with a straight face. "But I was pretty sure that this blob," He pointed to something or another, "Is a forest."

Coloring, she glared at him, and Kira chuckled next to her, grinning at Athrun, who was too busy glaring back at Cagalli. Needless to say, Kira was pleased to see that his friend and his twin were hitting it off.

Athrun studied it, putting a bored note into his voice. "A worthy effort, really, but I think the camera would be slightly more useful in giving me an idea as to what a building would look like next to this-," He pointed at a scribbly mess, "-bird's nest."

As he looked up, he was surprised to find her leaning back and smiling.

"I really should have taken a picture," Cagalli sighed, batting her eyes innocently at him. "It would give you an idea, wouldn't it? Especially since you lack the imagination."

Clients never got hoity-toity with him, Athrun cursed inwardly, and he wouldn't have this young girl flounce in and stamp his face into the gutter. He'd show her that she needed him to win in court! He'd show her!

Somehow, Athrun recovered. "I need more information on this, I'm afraid. I need to see the exact location, know the frequency of the noise, the volume, the kind of irritation, whether your migraine was really caused by this disturbance as you say, and-,"

"Alright, thank you." Cagalli said sharply, cutting him off there and then. "That means I _do_ have a chance of winning this. Thank you for your time and effort."

Then she folded the paper carefully, tossing it into her bag with what seemed to be a case of serious schizophrenia. On one hand, she'd folded it like it'd been a million-dollar cheque. On the other hand, Athrun noticed that she'd tossed it in her tote like it was a piece of homework she didn't want to ever see again.

"Excuse me?" He said weakly, not really understanding what was going on. He'd never had a client who'd interrupted him before— not when they were paying him to speak, and not when they were hanging onto his every word. Their conversation had gone rapid-fire once she'd started talking, and Athrun bristled indignantly, wondering why everything had shot by more quickly than he was supposed to allow for.

Cagalli Yula turned a little to Kira, her smile quite predatory. "Thanks for getting me here Kira."

"That's the only time he'd be free." Kira told her fondly, looking at Athrun who shrugged. "I thought you needed some help, and I'm sure Athrun can provide it."

Athrun wanted to throw up. Help was the understatement of the century. This female needed a shrink.

"Glad to be of service," Athrun said dryly, looking at Cagalli.

"Well, he was kind enough to hear me out." She smiled suddenly at Kira, and watching from where he was, Athrun thought it was a very nice smile.

Objectively, anyway. He was certainly not taking to his best friend's twin in the least, but her smile was a bit of a redeeming thing. It was a bit impish, a bit cheeky, but somehow honest and cheerful.

"He did provide me help," Cagalli repeated, looking past Athrun as if he was really just a pile of papers. "And he did confirm my suspicions that solicitors tend to be either really presumptious or too posh for their own good."

Athrun felt as if his ears would melt off his face. He stood up, suddenly wanting to make peace, making it a point to offer his hand to her.

But she didn't see it because she turned to hug Kira at the same time. Awkwardly, Athrun slid his hand into his pocket, and thankfully, Kira didn't see the moment because he was engulfed in his twin's hug.

"Well, see you." Cagalli said merrily to Kira. She stood up, stretching a little, and Athrun saw Kira look a bit frazzled.

"Wait, what?" Kira said a bit more loudly, as if that would help jolt Cagalli back to where she was. Athrun too, was confused. "This is ridiculous, I brought you here to a solicitor I actually trust! Look, I know you don't trust all solicitors but-," He halted his speech, "Where are you going?"

"Work, of course." Cagalli said incredulously, her fingers pausing momentarily on a button of her coat, as if he'd asked the silliest thing that exited in the Galaxy, let alone Heliopolis.

"What about this case?" Athrun demanded, standing and deciding to enter the conversation that took apparently place between Cagalli, Kira, her scarf, bag, and coat.

She looked vastly different now- almost glamorous in a devil-may-care, reckless way, even. It was true then, Athrun realized. She wore whatever the hell she felt comfortable in and kept an exterior that made her look incredibly respectable. She was fooling the world for what she really was- an impatient, crazy- oh God there was no other word for it- bitch.

But he found himself curious about her. As she swung herself into her coat with the ease and confidence that Athrun was suddenly discomforted by, Cagalli took her cap, adjusting it over her hair. Without the disadvantage of having a stranger tackle her, it sat on her head at a jaunty angle.

"It's settled," Cagalli said in a single breath, turning back to Kira. Her eyes were hidden behind the shades, and his eyes were drawn to her mouth. It was a strangely attractive mouth with full lips that were slightly cracked and parched from autumn, and there was a slightly mocking lilt to her voice. "I know what to do now. Thanks for your time and your attempts to convince me that double standards should be acceptable even when I'm getting two migraines a day."

"She told me that she's going to representing herself in court," Kira whispered into Athrun's ear. Athrun tried to say something but found that he was still speechless from the fact that Cagalli had suddenly acknowledged his existence.

And when Athrun found his voice, it was crackly and weak.

"But what about research, what about analysis, what about representation or litigation-," Athrun's voice revealed how confused he was at her conviction that she didn't need anyone to represent her in court. He was even more bewildered by her apparent desire to offend as many solicitors she could.

Cagalli nodded curtly, waving his protests aside, "I can handle that, thanks. I'll admit that coming here wasn't entirely a waste of time. I've got a pretty good idea of what to do now, thanks to you. Don't let me bother your and your posh work. I've got to get on with my own."

And ignoring his splutter, Cagalli moved closer to Kira again, grabbing her bag.

From where he was, Athrun was suddenly aware of how attractive she was. Miraculously, the case and the brief outline of facts she'd laid out in front of him had vanished, and he was staring at Cagalli Yula. As she leaned down, pecking Kira on the cheek, Cagalli unwittingly revealed a little cleavage to Athrun, who swallowed and looked away, sure that he had noticed a glimpse of black lace.

But unaware of Athrun's presence and certainly what he was bothered with, Cagalli began adjusting Kira's tie. She did it with such tenderness, deft confidence and skill that a housewife would be ashamed, all while speaking at top speed.

Quite forgetting what he was supposed to feel at that point- possibly annoyance or even bafflement at her strange ways- Athrun gazed at her. Yet, she didn't seem to notice Athrun staring at her.

Looking assuredly at her twin, Cagalli said, "Kira, find out how much I owe him. "Fifteen minutes, I think." She shrugged, adding, "Too long, I think."

Athrun seethed.

She looked back at Kira, who was probably as helpless as Athrun. "Kira, help me with the calculations, you know I'm rubbish with the Math." She moved out of the café as abruptly as she had came in, and only the tinkle of the bell made a noise in that space after she left.

She was remarkable, Athrun thought, despite himself.

They stared in silence.

When he had recovered sufficiently, Athrun swallowed, feeling more overwhelmed than he'd expected to be.

"Sorry," Kira had the decency to look apologetic. "I was the one who dragged her in."

"She's crazy!" Athrun said incredulously. "She's planning to be a claimant in person?"

Still, Kira grinned at how his friend seemed displaced for once- the infallible, totally controlled Athrun looking like someone had mortally insulted him. "She's had a bad experience with a few solicitors in the past. But I dragged her here because I thought you'd be able to help her."

"Well, putting aside your twin's apparent lack of sense, Kira, that's a dud case by itself!" Athrun looked down at his palm, expecting the map to be there but seeing only the lines of his hand. Cagalli Yula had taken the map with her.

Kira grinned. "That's what I told her, but she wouldn't listen. I thought I'd introduce her to the firm here, because I heard this firm takes on nearly impossible cases and makes those work."

Athrun was far too lost in his thoughts to hear anything. He slapped his hand on his forehead. "She wants to sue a corporation that big? And just to get an injunction without at least a window being smashed? They're due next month and there's been so much publicity about that showroom and-,"

He trailed off, wondering what in the world had gotten him to become so nervy in the morning. Even the occasional waking up to find female strangers in his bed had been a less traumatic experience. Where was his standard approach to all cases and all nut jobs, Athrun seethed, and why had that failed with this particular nut job?

Athrun shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts. "And there's a statutory provision, and-,"

"And that was my twin." Kira concluded, smiling sympathetically and patting Athrun on the shoulder as they stared at the door that she'd pushed through.


	2. Better to help garden gnomes than people

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.**

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A/N: Hello again dear readers and reviewers! I'm really happy about the start of this fic, and I'm glad that an idea I've been toying with long before I even finished The Isle is being well-received. Yes, I know it seems strange that my school lessons would come in useful in writing fanfiction (apart from the importance of putting the disclaimer right at the top of this!) but whaddya know. I've always been fond of the topic of land-related torts and the wacky case authorities that come with it, and so it is with great enthusiasm that I'm combining some of the actual cases and the basic principles with my favourite anime couple.

Thanks to all who have read and reviewed and I hope you like this chapter too. As always, I love reading reviews and update as soon as those come in.

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_"Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well."_

_Butler, Samuel  
_

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**Chapter 2: Better to help garden gnomes than people**

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The rest of the week was proving to be incredibly unmemorable.

Worse still, Athrun hadn't been concentrating very hard on his tasks the whole week— his thoughts had been elsewhere. And whenever he caught himself being distracted, he was horrified to realize that he'd been thinking of ways to sue some developers who had every right to be clearing and making noise on some plot of land somewhere.

On this Thursday morning, he had scheduled the meeting for Gilbert Dullindal and Mia Campbell by means of contacting Heine Westenfluss, but the attempts at a settlement did not seem to be going anywhere.

They sat in a meeting room—a room that was not similar to Athrun's working cubicle in any way. This table was oval and had nothing much on it, save a bunch of plastic flowers in some vase. Athrun's work table on the other hand, was a bit like having a buffet spread crammed onto a hospital meal tray. His table had nothing that was not being used practically, but the vase on this table was something that Lunamaria Hawke, the secretary, had used her initiative to obtain and display.

Five minutes ago, she'd come in to serve them drinks, and Athrun had noticed Heine Westenfluss and Gilbert Dullindal's eyes jumping appreciatively to her short skirt. Admittedly, Lunamaria was quite attractive with that ostentatious hair-colour and her endless legs, and she had a distinctively preppy style that always got the visitors to the office noticing her.

Athrun would have made a mental note to tell Lunamaria to get more office-friendly attire, but Dearka had always argued that a bit of distraction for clients that they were charging by the hour was always welcome.

Now, Athrun cleared his throat, tapping slightly on the file with a pen, reminding everybody present to focus on more pressing issues than trying to land a date with the secretary. The clock of course, was in a conspicuous place to remind them all that the solicitors' fees were hourly. "So if I understand you correctly, Mr. Westenfluss, your client is suing because of personal injury?"

"Amongst other things, yes." Heine nodded. He opened his briefcase and fetched a file, presumably with Mia Campbell's instructions. "She is also seeking compensation for psychological injury, negligence and a breach of fiduciary duty where Mr. Dullindal is concerned. As far as my client's instructions are concerned, she is prepared to have Zaft & Zaku Partnership represent her in all claims." He looked up, smiling very slightly. "I understand that Elsman & Reid is also representing the Djibril Private Hospital as the defence, of course, but we are here to focus on Mr. Dullindal."

Gilbert Dullindal spoke up before Athrun could respond. His eyes were slits and his tone rather cool for someone who was being sued for quite a few things. "Mia Campbell's not going to get a single cent from me if she doesn't cooperate. Let's face it—Djibril Private Hospital has the best surgeons." He smirked, flashing white, even teeth. "All of us in the show business know its reputation for taking people who have faded into oblivion, restructuring their faces, then reviving them and their careers. She was the one who told me to make her like Lacus Clyne, except better. I only followed her instructions."

Athrun held up a hand hastily. He wished he was elsewhere now, but he did not really have a better place in mind. "Hold it, Mr. Dullindal, we're trying our best to avoid going to court right now, so I'd like you to calm down and just think of the time and effort you'd be saving if you could let us try to reach an out-of-court settlement."

Personally, he prayed that Dullindal would catch the hint that an out-of-court settlement was the best way not to lose the case— the fact was that Dullindal had an objectively weaker case than the woman suing him. Dullindal, however, seemed not to notice Athrun's pointed tone.

"I'm having second thoughts about this settlement attempt." Dullindal frowned. "If she wants to take it to court, I can go along with that." He looked at Athrun confidently. "I can afford to play that game."

He was a good-looking man, Athrun supposed, and he had gone from being a glam rock-star with a hundred endorsement-deals to being a rather successful pop-star manager. While everybody had heard of Gilbert Dullindal, Athrun had not dealt long enough with his latest client to know what he was really thinking.

"But Mr. Dullindal," Athrun tried to sway him back into agreeing to a settlement, "You could be saving a lot of your valuable time avoiding litigation, if you could agree to Ms. Campbell's settlement terms."

"Settlement terms?" Dullindal laughed once. "That woman didn't even show up today." He smirked. "Although I don't think that she could, even if she had wanted to."

Heine exchanged a glance with Athrun.

The woman suing his client, Mia Campbell, had not turned up in person, even if Gilbert Dullindal had. Athrun could not blame her for that. Instead, Heine Westenfluss, her lawyer, had provided three photographs of his client. Post-surgery, that is.

Looking at the photographs, Athrun noticed that the woman who was suing his client had a very gloomy expression. He couldn't quite tell if it was unhappiness at her botched operation that was causing her glower or the unnatural weight of the overtly-plump lips. Either way, Athrun wasn't sure if fishes were supposed to look this human.

"Do you have any photographs of what Ms. Campbell looked like, pre-operation?" Athrun asked Heine.

Heine flipped to another file and passed it to Athrun with a tiny smile threatening to emerge on his lips. "Here."

"Thanks." Athrun murmured, already deep in thought about the contrast of image before and after the operation.

"She was a plain Jane before the operation." Dullindal supplied.

It was true. But Heine articulated what Athrun had only managed to keep from saying. "In all honesty, Mr. Dullindal, she would have been better off a plain Jane than what she looks like now."

Athrun glanced at Dullindal, afraid that Dullindal would spring to his feet and start some fight. But Dullindal was a different sort of client— he only sat there and smirked back at Heine Westenfluss.

Truthfully, Athrun much preferred to deal with Mia Campbell's lawyer, Heine Westenfluss, without Dullindal or Campbell in the picture. He and Heine had been drinking buddies for a long time and Heine had been an exceptionally good student and old friend back then during those days. That hadn't changed even now—Athrun and Heine often met up outside court, opposite sides or not.

Sighing inwardly, Athrun wondered whether it would have taken all of half-an-hour to reach a compromise if he had simply bought Heine a drink in private. Of course, his wish could not be fulfilled, because they had to act on their clients' instructions at the end of the day. Looking at Heine, Athrun could sense that Campbell was apparently quite a stubborn person who wanted to sue at all costs.

The real problem had started when she had instructed the plastic surgeon to 'make me look like a million bucks- make me look like Lacus Clyne.' The series of complex operations had _cost_ a million bucks and more. It had turned out all funny – funny in the non-humorous way.

The idea here was that Mia Campbell was very, very pissed.

Speaking to Mia Campbell over the phone in order to invite her to this settlement hadn't given Athrun much headway in his attempts to convince her to drop the claims. He could remember a voice uncannily like Lacus Clyne's, only that it was screeching, "How am I going to appear in person to sing my songs? Are you telling me that my current surgery to fix the previous one has to be incurred as my own expenses?"

"Well, Mr. Dullindal," Heine said smoothly, glancing momentarily at the information his client had given him, "While your lawyer is looking at the obvious ravages of the operation, why don't you tell us about your professional relationship with Miss Campbell?"

Dullindal leaned back in the chair—the very illustration of ease. Before Athrun could shoot him a warning look, Dullindal announced, "I made her, that's what."

"I see." Heine said softly, a gleam coming into his eye. His voice was soothing and very friendly— he was employing the million-dollar voice that Athrun had always recognized as Heine's most valuable weapon. "Including her image, Mr. Dullindal?"

Athrun tried not to slap his forehead in irritation. "Mr. Westenfluss, I would just like to remind you that this no-prejudice meeting is an effort to reach settlement. The details here aren't supposed to be used in court."

"Thank you for the reminder." Heine said courteously. He adjusted his tie a little, remarkably suited to his monochrome uniform.

"What my client meant," Athrun jutted in before Dullindal could open his mouth again, "Was that he brought her to success. Miss Campbell was long doing Lacus Clyne covers and dressing like the latter before she got signed on with Minerva records."

As a singer who specialized in doing Lacus Clyne covers, Mia Campbell had enjoyed some success, particularly on the internet. Referring to the facts that Vino had collected and proceeded to record in a chicken-scratch, Athrun made out that she was a purported Metube star. Clearly, she hadn't been contented with that— she'd managed to get herself signed with Minerva records.

"I managed her." Dullindal said carelessly, crossing his legs and revealing a hint of crocodile leather boots beneath his sharply-cut trenchcoat. "As a producer for Minerva records, I propelled her to fame. Because of me, she landed an illustrious deal that included her being paid handsomely for doing live performances and cutting a new album." He looked irreverently at his fingernails. "Amongst other endorsements and 'Lacus Clyne-inspired' fashion spreads, of course."

"Voice-wise," Heine said, "I understand she didn't need much management, correct?"

Dullindal shrugged. "She was a cheaper Lacus Clyne—that was her strongest selling point. Her songs were arranged to be demonically-catchy too."

For one, Athrun wasn't impressed by what Mia Campbell claimed as her songs. Seeing as Lacus Clyne's songs were frequently featured on the radio, Athrun was familiar enough to know that the said Mia Campbell covers of Lacus Clyne's songs were essentially just remixes. The thirteen remixed versions of what should have been a rather simple, melodious tune had not really appealed to him.

His lip curling slightly, Athrun thought of the techno, orchestra, Spanish, and robo dance accompaniment of the original Lacus Clyne hit. Mia Campbell had definitely been grasping at straws there. For another, Athrun was not convinced that she was going to look like Lacus Clyne even with forty more surgeries.

"Well then, Mr. Dullindal," Heine said carefully, "Can you assist me in understanding why she went for the operation?"

Athrun did not fail to notice the delicate wording that Heine had employed. There was nothing to accuse Dullindal of having suggested the operation in the syntax of the question, and it was precisely something that Dullindal fell for.

Athrun sighed to himself.

"Frankly, Mia Campbell can sing." Dullindal was looking rather bored. "But nobody wants to see a less than perfect copy of Lacus, let alone a woman with a distinctively unremarkable, even if natural face." He paused. "No matter what her chest size purportedly and naturally is."

Athrun tried to ignore the last comment. In fact, he was quite sure that Mia's highly risqué outfits and coy, provocative dancing were the key differences that people looked out for. Clearly, Dullindal must have gunned for the winning combination of Lacus' angelic face with Mia Campbell's less-than-angelic style.

"I see." Heine nodded. "Well, there is a dispute of the facts, for sure. She claims that you put her up to the surgery."

Dullindal sat up, ready to say something, but Athrun cut in right away. "We'll leave that for the courts if they can't come to a settlement."

"Alright then." Heine tapped his fingers on the wood. "Even if we can't agree who came up with the surgery idea first. don't you agree that you did have the responsibility to have her best interests at heart, Mr. Dullindal? As her manager?"

Dullindal looked back at Heine imperiously. "I did." He shrugged. "I maintain that she was the one who asked me to get her surgeons. I acted in her best interests and on her instructions by getting her surgeons who would make her look like Lacus Clyne. If she wants to sue someone, she should be suing those surgeons at Djibril Private Hospital who botched her operation."

Looking at his client, Athrun wondered if Dullindal was really secretly a nasty piece of work. There had been plenty of rumours about him that Athrun had dug out over the course of the last two weeks while on this case—that Gilbert Dullindal had a glib tongue, seduced perfectly respectable women with little more than a glance, and that he regularly convinced starstruck teenagers to sign a fair deal of their personal rights away in the quest for fame.

As it was, Athrun decided that Dullindal was clever and devious enough to not really require legal counsel. But as he thought of that, Dullindal's cell rang, and he answered it immediately.

Once Dullindal excused himself and went outside to take the call, Heine leaned forward, grinning at his old schoolmate. "Well, Zala, you're not doing too badly here with Dearka, aren't you?"

Athrun clucked his tongue disapprovingly and Heine laughed. "Right, you don't go by that name anymore, do you?"

"It's Reid. That's why this firm is called Elsman & Reid and not Elsman & Zala, which would—," Athrun smiled drolly, "Sound a little less respectable."

"Right," Heine paused, remembering how Athrun had always taken his mother's surname and maintained it on his cards and for every introduction. Even back in school, Athrun had avoided being associated with the more famous of surnames. "Then Mr. Reid, may I just congratulate this firm's recent success?"

"Come now," Athrun chuckled. He pointed at Heine's briefcase and beautiful silk tie. "You're the one who earns thrice the amount I do."

Heine raised an elegant eyebrow. "You know, had you followed the parental advice, you could be earning five times of what I earn right now." He looked at Athrun interestedly. "If you had followed the advice doled out to you, that is."

"Yes, yes," Athrun mused. "All I'd have to do would be to wear a tuxedo every evening and get to know people and forget them in the very same night." He waved his hands over his files lackadaisically. "There'd be no need to sit around listening to lunatics to earn a living."

"I suppose you might have gotten laid for free more often if you'd stayed in the high society," Heine supplied calmly, prompting a raised eyebrow from Athrun. "But let's face it, your pop's a slave driver and he probably wouldn't let you be a rich little boy with the bling, arm candy and the wheels so simply."

"I'd have had to slog it out anyway," Athrun informed him. There was a slightly wistful expression coming into his face. "Might as well do it while being my own person."

"True, that," Heine rested his chin in his hands. "But let's try and remember that he's not exactly supportive of Elsman & Reid either. When was it that he tried to draw up the mortgage?"

"Last year, when we met at some gala," Athrun informed him dryly, "And that was when I basically told him to get off my back. But you know, we've paid off the loans, we've established a pretty big profit margin now, and whatever's the past stays in the past." He paused slightly. "We've got better things to do than examine our heads and test whether we have father complexes."

"Do you need to test for that?" Heine questioned.

Shooting a look at Heine, Athrun chose not to reply.

And so Heine shrugged. "Anyway, the firm I work for has always been established, Athrun, and fat paychecks are a sure thing. Yours, considering that it was only started five years ago, is doing fantastically—that Le Creuset case got the firm featured in the Law Annual. Groundbreaking case, really." He crossed his arms assuredly. "And it can only get better when you have one of Heliopolis' Eligible Bachelors as a partner."

"Stuff it." Athrun told him, although his mouth was twitching into a smile.

Heine only laughed. "Between you and me, I don't think Mia Campbell will drop any charges or settle for less than the amount she wants to sue for. Gilbert Dullindal has to be prepared to fight tooth and nail with her."

Athrun sighed, massaging his temples. "I thought so. Sometimes, I don't even know why I take on clients like him."

"You know what they say." His friend said cheerfully. "Better to help garden gnomes than people. At least Dullindal's a paying client."

"Sure." Athrun muttered. "I just have to win though."

"No wonder your eagerness at doing this out of court. But don't worry too much even if it finally does go to court. It's you representing him, so I think he has a chance of winning." Heine lowered his voice. "Objectively speaking, anyway."

"I can only pray so." Athrun said pessimistically, looking through his personal files of information that he'd collected about Gilbert Dullindal. It was a habit and personal policy of Athrun's to find out what he could about his clients—particularly because those things came in useful while deciding how to communicate with them.

"So what's your guy like?" Heine inquired.

Athrun shrugged. "He's been accused of seducing attractive and impressionable young men before. He doesn't have a completely clean record, if you ask me. In fact, that's how he decided to choose our firm to defend him— he told me that Rey Za Burrel had heard of Elsman & Reid and recommended us."

"Rey Za Burrel, eh?" Heine shook his head, thinking of the classical crossover-pianist star, also signed under Gilbert Dullindal. There had also been rumours that Rey Za Burrel was involved with Gilbert Dullindal beyond a professional relationship. "I can't figure those two out."

"Best not to." Athrun grimaced, thinking of how Rey Za Burrel was a distant relative of Rau Le Creuset's and had purportedly been talent-spotted by Gilbert Dullindal. It was a very small world.

"Don't fret," Heine said lazily. "The time we've just spent is clocked in anyway. When this is over, I'll buy you a drink. In the meantime, just remember what your hourly rates are and try to relax."

Athrun ran a hand through his hair tiredly. "Scant compensation for my nerves, Westenfluss. It's been a very strange week."

"Why?" His friend inquired curiously

But before Athrun could attempt to describe the encounter with Kira Yamato and his supposed twin, Dullindal moved back into the room. His hands were clutching at his cell and they all saw that his face was mottled with anger. But he slammed a fist on the table before anyone could inquire what the matter was.

"I just found out that she gave a phone interview to the Heliopolis Tattler making some claims about me." Dullindal declared. He looked at Athrun, frowning with his face like thunder. "I want you to prepare to counter-sue Mia Campbell for defamation!"

* * *

Later on in that same week, Athrun sat at his table, filling in information into the template for general memorandums. Once again, his thought were jolted and distracted, and he bit his lips in frustration, cursing everything in front of him that he could put a name to.

Like a mini city, the tables and shelves that stretched between him and his partner drew long and blocky, forming the bedrock for the buildings of files and the concrete-grey compilations of news articles that they'd kept in clear ring folders. The light that eased through the curtains seemed to reflect something of the asphalt-like planes of stacked boxes and thick bound documents.

Dullindal's case was definitely more complicated than he'd expected, and this was reflected in the crease between Athrun's eyebrows. The path from his desk to the window spanned a good distance of texts, cupboards, yet-to-be unwrapped boxes, and a few computers. In other words, there were about two meters worth of uncleared work between him and the window, and Athrun had plenty of time for contemplation.

When he required a particular practitioner's textbook, he plodded to get it with his feet like a duck's webs in mud. With his chair in tow, Athrun inched towards it unglamorously without lifting his rear from his seat.

Unfortunately, his already jerky train of thought was entirely disrupted by Dearka Elsman.

"Vino!" Dearka's voice boomed loudly for a second, and then Athrun saw his law partner peek over a pile of files to grin at Athrun. "Well, hey now."

"Good morning." Athrun said pointedly, making an allusion to Dearka's being late for the second time that week and that Dearka comfortably chose to disregard altogether. "You know that you're due in court for the pre-trial conference in two hours, don't you?"

"Of course. Last court appearance of the week." Dearka answered matter-of-factly. "That's why I need my pick-me-up."

Dearka was a born solicitor, with a tongue so slippery it beat any road on a rainy day. With a wit that Elsman & Reid relied on for their salaries, Dearka was the sort people took notice of easily. His father had been a rather prominent businessman, and Dearka had long been known as something of a rich playboy.

Athrun's eyes lingered on Dearka's sleeves now.

Despite the standard, rather strict dress protocol of black and white, Dearka always made it a point to wear flashy cufflinks even when in court. Few people knew that his plentiful style was representative of his substance as well.

Dearka Elsman never had to work very hard, Athrun realized, to get the cases in order, although he looked like he was always grasping at straws and always running late on the schedule. He had the luck of a devil.

Athrun however, was the sort who took no chances. He controlled things with an iron fist. Every piece of evidence was kept in order, every argument was prodded and poked before he even stepped into court, and every counter-argument had to be predicted for an easy win in court. In short, every case was scrutinized before he even decided that Elsman & Reid would take it on.

Their contrasting styles made for a killer combination, as Dearka had once remarked, and Athrun was glad he'd joined Dearka on this business venture of sorts.

Currently, he watched Dearka, who was hunting high and low for Vino.

"Vino's not here." Athrun told Dearka, when he was finally tired of Dearka running around in circles. "I can't possibly hide him underneath my table."

Inwardly, Athrun wondered when Dearka had taken the duty onto himself to curb Vino's lateness. Dearka was certainly no stickler for punctuality either. Dearka had met some girl recently—some brunette, if Athrun could recall, and Dearka had been quite busy chasing skirts.

"He wasn't here when you got to the office in the morning?"

Athrun decided not to reveal how he'd spent more than his usual half-an-hour in the Cosmos café, watching the crowds as those built up. Inwardly, he knew that he had been hoping to see someone in particular, although he hadn't had any luck so far. "I don't know. I'm usually the first here anyway."

Dearka began to mutter a complaint. "Darn that Vino— he must have slept late again. For God's sake— it's a Friday and he wants to be late for work! You know what his latest excuse was?"

"I know," Athrun said drily, putting down the practitioner's text for a second. "He says his flat mate Yolan likes to snore at night, and that makes him sleep so badly that he's always not hearing his alarm clock. I told him to come up with a better excuse or to buy a heavy duty stapler for Yolan."

"Aww," Dearka muttered. "I really wanted some coffee."

"Lunamaria's free to get you some." Athrun informed him, flipping through some papers and marking a page featuring a slightly relevant case. He frowned, looking at the date it had been decided— it would not be advantageous to cite authority dating back about fifty years.

"I don't like the instant mix. I want proper coffee from down the street." Dearka continued bluntly, looking around to reach over to a nearby shelf and grab a brochure that he apparently needed for work.

"Will some from Cosmos Café do?" Athrun asked, trying not to let himself sound too eager. "I could do with a break—I could go there and get you some."

"Nah." Dearka declined, putting an end to Athrun's secret hopes. "That place's coffee is below mediocre. But there's a place that's even nearer to this street. I heard that there's this newly-opened café— Desert Tiger Bistro or something like that. Heard it's owned by this geezer who has amazing blends. Runs it with a really hot-chick for a girlfriend, I heard."

"Of course." Athrun muttered. "Hot chicks and good coffee always catch your attention."

"That's why Vino should be here to help me get the coffee." Dearka flipped through the document that he'd selected, and Athrun tried not to notice the comely bikini-clad woman winking and posing in a come-hitherto pose featured on it. "That's what we agreed on, right? We hired him because he promised to throw in photostatting and coffee services too."

"Maybe the latter for you. I don't do more than one cup of coffee a day." Athrun said stolidly, standing up a little to fetch a reference file from a shelf above his desk. This was true—Heine and Dullindal had finished theirs, but Lunamaria had eventually cleared Athrun's still-full cup.

Dearka laughed, lobbing aside the magazine. "Maybe you haven't tasted good coffee before—which is why you prefer tea. But tea is for a gramps like you, not for me, the Mr. Hot-as-Hell-Lawyer." He winked, ruffling his hair to prove his point.

"You made a mistake there." Athrun told him sardonically. He was still flipping through the text, trying to find something that would help his case. "I think the management down below would be very insulted to have you comparing their temperatures to yourself. The poles would be a far better reference."

Dearka coughed. "Well then, my dear partner, I must ask in retaliation—how's the Dullindal case coming?"

"Downright bad, if you ask me. So there's your answer and your revenge." Athrun returned to the files before him. He sighed. "I'm finding a huge problem with the fact that Dullindal was the one who told Mia Campbell that looking like Lacus Clyne was the best way to earn more fans. I'm sure Heine Westenfluss will use that in his case theory."

Dearka blanched. "Is that fact established yet?"

"No, but Dullinal as good as admitted it to me in private." Athrun said morosely. "He's a strike out on everything. He had a duty of care, not to mention a fiduciary one, and he breached both in my objective opinion. Even if we limit this to negligence, Gilbert Dullindal knew that the head surgeon had a history of being eccentric, and he knew that previous accidents had happened. But he still convinced her to do it." He sighed. "Cross-examination's going to be a circus."

"So the other side's strongest point would be that he agreed to let her do a make-over eh?" Dearka questioned. "Is that common with stars and their managers? Or was it an unusual request in the first place?"

Athrun shook his head. "I tried that argument tract already. But these makeovers happens all the time. It's called re-inventing oneself— lots of pop stars do it. Even Lacus considered doing it, but hers was a matter of changing her hair-clip."

Dearka snorted. "Good advice from her manager, that Martin Da Costa guy. Her girl-next-door thing works for her and she should just stick to it. If it sells you a million records for every single, why bother reinventing?"

"This was a case of extreme." Athrun agreed, looking down at Campbell's photographs.

"Yeah well, Dullindal got lucky and now she wants to sue him and the hospital."

"Djibril Private Hospital shouldn't be a problem," Athrun remarked. "I've already called up other medical expert witnesses and arranged for a reliable, totally objective council of plastic surgeons to appear in court as advisors to the judges."

Dearka rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How much are you paying them to appear? And how many of them are prepared to testify for him?"

"Gilbert Dullindal's loaded," Athrun considered. "So we have the funds and that means we can get at least five." He shrugged. "I think we can stretch it out a bit—ten would make a better case, and I can get at least three to fly in from Coppernicus."

"Right." Dearka agreed. "And how are you planning to present the case?"

"Well, they've promised me that they'll back the surgeons up, but they'll pretend to have a really academic discussion in court first."

"Good." His partner turned. "Well, don't let me disturb you anymore than I have. But tell me if Vino finally comes in."

"Right." Athrun was silent for a bit, but then he asked his retreating partner a bit cautiously, "Do you have any cases on private nuisance?"

Dearka made a prompt u-turn and came back to Athrun's desk. "Say what?" And clearing a corner on Athrun's table to sit on it, his partner looked at him curiously. "Did you take on any case during the time that I was asleep last night?"

Athrun tried to smile. "Well, that is—," He trailed off, feeling slightly embarrassed. But if he had to be honest about it, he had spent a significant portion of the meeting with Gilbert Dullindal and Heine Westenfluss thinking about how he'd been— there was no other word for it—blown off. It wasn't that he was petty enough to take offence. It was stranger than that.

The truth was that Athrun actually felt like he owed Cagalli Yula something.

"Well?" Dearka prompted. He crossed his arms, staring at Athrun. "What's this about private nuisance? Our firm doesn't deal with claims like that. It's not really our speciality, even if we have dealt with property and licenses and things like that."

Sighing inwardly, Athrun looked at his shoes, feeling a bit down. At the same time, Athrun tried to convince himself that his interest in the little that Cagalli had told him was firstly, good for karma since he was trying to help, and that secondly, it would not do to stay in his best friend's twin's bad books. Kira had told Athrun that he would be visiting Heliopolis a lot more because of the current dolphin project. Now, Athrun tried telling himself that meeting with Kira and possibly his twin, would be highly awkward if he did not help Cagalli Yula.

Almost to convince himself that it was only natural to think these thoughts, Athrun adjusted his tie. But then he caught himself thinking of the way Cagalli had helped her twin with his even when she'd been so curt to Athrun. In all honesty, Athrun had mulled over it every morning in the Cosmos café, wondering whether she would somehow pass by and whether he could make her less antagonistic towards him.

Now, he shook his head, wondering why he even cared about what she thought of him. "It's just that I met an old friend of mine earlier this week—Kira Yamato." Athrun paused haplessly. "His sister too. She wanted to sue to prevent a corporation from continuing work in some space near her apartment."

"Oh, a claim under private nuisance." Dearka nodded, perking up. By now, Dearka was sounding incredibly energetic for someone who professed not to be a morning person. Glancing at his partner, Athrun knew it was the smell of money that was waking Dearka up. "Maybe Cagalli Yula heard that we are an up-and-coming firm and that we're both getting quite a reputation for being legal sharks and being absolutely hot."

"I must say though," Athrun mused, folding his arms and ignoring Dearka's last comment once again. "She is rather interesting. Nothing like Kira, really."

"What do you mean?" Dearka said curiously.

Athrun sighed. "She probably has a bad temper, isn't mild, isn't patient, and is…" He paused, thinking of her fierce expression and the glimpse of black lace. "Kinda female."

Dearka snorted. "Where the last detail was concerned, I give my thanks, Captain Obvious."

"That's not true…" Athrun mumbled under his breath. "I thought she was…."

"What's that?" Dearka asked. "Did you say something."

Athrun turned away. "Nothing."

Dearka of course, did not know that Athrun could so easily summon the sound of her cry ripping through the air when he'd tackled her. Even now, for some odd reason, Athrun had found his collar heating up a little. Berating himself inwardly and trying to tell himself that he'd first thought of her as the butch-type, Athrun tried to shuffle his files around.

Thankfully, Dearka had not noticed his partner's discomfort. He tapped his chin, looking thoughtful. "I see. Well— what's the damage she suffered? Or was it some substantial interference with her quiet enjoyment of the land?"

"Damage wise, she suffered—," Athrun paused, then said lamely,"—a migraine."

Dearka's mouth fell open. "So this woman has suffered a terrible, head-splitting, instantaneously fatal, irritation-inducing migraine. Well, you have a case, that's for sure."

"Er- it's supposedly a really bad migraine caused by the noise." The words were out of Athrun's mouth before he realised it, and then he cursed himself for trying to defend someone who he'd spoken to for barely fifteen minutes long—too long, in her own words.

"Well, this is an abominable migraine, I presume," Dearka added, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "The mother of all migraines, as one might call it. I'm sure it had the impact of the last earthquake that hit some poor villlage in Earth Alliance somewhere. And that is what drove-," He paused, "What's her name?"

"Cagalli Yula." Athrun supplied helplessly. He had turned the name over in his mind for a week now, wondering how she'd ended up with a different surname from Kira's and why her personality was so distinct from his friend's mild one.

"Right, that's what drove Cagalli Yula to make this claim, bless her soul." Dearka's smirk was consuming his entire face now. "That poor woman!" He swelled magnificently, almost throwing his arms akimbo in an attempt to embrace the suffering of multiple continents.

"When I saw her," Athrun muttered. "I had to thank God for blessing the poor little headache-sufferer. They were able to save the whole brain."

They shared a chuckle. All the same, Athrun found himself idly picking up a book and searching through the practitioner's text for cases on private nuisance.

Dearka noticed this however, and his laughter died. He took the book, closed it, and faced Athrun firmly. Puzzled, his partner asked, "Are you actually looking at cases on private nuisance?"

"Er—," Athrun faced him guiltily. "Yes."

"Why?" Dearka demanded. "Weren't we on the same page, Athrun?" He looked incredulous. "I thought we were quite sure that it was a joke?"

"Er— it's just curiosity, I suppose. I was just wondering—just for argument's sake, of course," Athrun quickly added a caveat. "I was wondering whether she could possibly get an injunction. Even if the developers of the land have the license to clear the space, that doesn't mean they can do it so noisily as to interrupt the quiet enjoyment of her land, right? Remember the days in our tort class, Dearka?"

Dearka shuddered. "No, thank you. I'd rather be Mia Campbell at this point."

But Athrun continued still. "I'm just trying to make you remember what the old fogey of a professor used to say about statutory immunity from private nuisance. There's that idea that you can only change the character of the neighbourhood but you can't be a private nuisance. Remember the pig farm case he brought up? The one where the landowner wanted to stop the neighbours from using the land for rearing pigs because of the stink it raised?"

"Yeah, I know." Dearka said flippantly. "He looked very at home talking about smelly, irritating porkers. I know what you're trying to say—just because you have a license to do something on your land doesn't mean you can do it to the effect that you become a private nuisance."

He shook his head. "But Athrun, that case was heavily qualified—the license was granted by planning permission. But in Miss Migraine's case, she's actually fighting a statutory provision that gives the Heliopolis main town council permission for anyone to build anything at any cost if the council approves!"

Undeterred by Dearka's crushing treatment of the case authority and the misplacement of the text he'd been looking at, Athrun located it beneath some papers and then flipped through it again, looking at some materials that he suspected were quite outdated. Disappointed, he looked back at Dearka. "This doesn't help me. Nothing seems to suggest one can get out of the basic proofs the plaintiff needs to sue for private nuisance. She doesn't seem to have anything I could use to present her claim."

"Like I was saying," Dearka said pointedly, almost banging his cup down on Athrun's abused, overloaded table. "The pig farm case and a whole host of others should have taught you a thing or two about what quiet enjoyment of land is—especially when there's not even unlawful damage to one's own land. If you were to take on this case, Athrun, you'd be having to fight a statutory provision under quite a few Heliopolis land authority acts! As far as the Heliopolis town council's statutory powers and the trite law is concerned, you can't run to the courts and make your neighbours stop their construction if they have the Heliopolis town council's license for it!"

"That's an oversimplification." Athrun said stubbornly. "I could possibly argue that the developers can enjoy immunity only where it is confined to harm which was the inevitable result of what was authorised."

"Don't be silly, Athrun." Dearka shot back. "Obviously, noise and a bit of disturbance from clearing and constructing is an inevitable result of the Heliopolis council giving the developers a green light!"

"Maybe it isn't just the kind of noise you'd expect with normal construction." Athrun pointed out. "Maybe this surpasses what is even authorised by the Heliopolis council."

"Oh yeah? Just remember that the extra-sensitive plaintiff can't claim when the reasonable man doesn't." Dearka smirked. "The princess who's suffering this migraine can't claim for compensation of her medical expenses, let alone ask the court's for an injunction if nobody is going through this purported headache!"

Athrun tried again. "Maybe if we try the tactic that—,"

"Look," Dearka shot. "This case isn't going anywhere because it's a dud. It's a dud, you hear me? Clearing space can't possibly be interference of one's quiet enjoyment of the land—she can't sue with a private nuisance cause of action with something like that! This is a dud!"

"Well, that's what you said about Rau Le Creuset when he sailed in and wanted to know if he had a legal claim against George Alster and his management committee for throwing him out of the mall." Athrun muttered. He pointed to a file that Dearka smiled reminiscently at for a few seconds too. "That was such a weird case that you just said no way and flat out too. But look what we did with it!"

"Well I do admit that the supposed dud earned us a nice receipt in the bank, the nice little bit of prestige, and the nice mention in the Annual Law Review." Dearka said proudly. He bent over Athrun's shoulder, fingering the spine of the file almost lovingly. Looking at Dearka's tender expression, Athrun could only hope he had such affection for his girlfriend. "We created legal history with that case, mate."

"Which proves my point." Athrun said, rifling around, and then standing up to get more material now. Dearka began tagging along while Athrun fetched a text and returned to his desk. "Just because you say it's a dud doesn't mean it's one."

And Athrun plopped back into his seat, throwing the file to the side and sighing. "But she did make me feel like I was on my first case or something. She looked at me like I was a slug when I suggested an injunction, like it was the most obvious, inane thing to say."

Despite what he was saying, his hands were busying themselves with flagging pages relevant to suing under private nuisance.

"Look, is she coming back here?" Dearka asked again and rather loudly too. It was clearly a bid to convince Athrun to leave the file that he was creating alone. "I'd like to meet her for myself and give her a piece of my mind, twin of my partner's friend or not." He eyed Athrun, who was still flipping pages. "Please don't tell me that you're actually accepting her request to take her case on."

Athrun paused, wondering whether to inform Dearka that Cagalli had definitely not wanted to come near him with a foot-long pole. He considered this, Dearka's clear disapproval, the remnants of his own ego, and finally decided to give a non-committal grunt.

"Are you actually going to do this because she's childhood-chum's twin?" Dearka demanded.

"Maybe." Athrun said vaguely. "She's nothing like Kira Yamato though."

He got up, unconsciously beginning to pace because of his hidden agitation. "She reminds me of a paranoid old man who takes it upon himself to learn how to mend broken bones because he hates all doctors who he believes will kill him when he's not careful. It's like she read up on the law to avoid having to go anywhere near a solicitor." Athrun looked directly at Dearka. "She could even tell me what private nuisance was defined as."

Still sitting on the desk, Dearka gave a low, long whistle. "Try asking her what she understands by the word 'crime'. She may actually know the legal definition instead of citing you instances when she went out for dinner with her boyfriend and he forgot his wallet."

"I don't think she has one." Athrun stopped pacing and said with a clear touch of acridity he would have normally reserved from his bland, always neutral tone. "She would chew up any male and spit his remnants out."

Dearka shrugged, grinning. "Is she coming back here? I'd like to get a look at her."

"I'm not sure," Athrun muttered. He began to pace again. "It all depends whether her mothership has arrived yet."

Dearka chuckled. "And where exactly is this place that she wants left alone?"

"I know that she lives on Elythia-Terrain Street." Athrun informed Dearka. He decided to keep the fact that he had driven past it thrice this week from his partner. Instead, he moved back to his desk and sat down. "So probably, the place that's undergoing the clearing process is that forest near the place." He blew his breath out heavily. "You know— the one where there's a sports-car showroom in the plans."

A familiar look came over Dearka's face, and then he smirked, grabbing a chair and proceeding to straddle it. "I suppose you didn't tell her the back story of the building that's coming up on that space."

Still clearing the paper piles, Athrun only frowned. "I don't mix anything with my professional duties, Dearka. You know that." His words rang with conviction in the air, and Athrun congratulated himself on managing to say what he just had.

"Whatever it is," Dearka drawled, "You already know you're not handling anything for Cagalli Yula, so stop getting interested about this case. I know it tickles your massive intellect, but we've got better things to do and better cows to milk."

Athrun kept silent, although Dearka was right.

As if sensing Athrun's unexpressed thoughts, Dearka looked firmly at him. "We're too busy. Our cases are already tough and high-profile enough." He laughed to himself. "A rockstar-cum-popstar-manager's joining our clientele now!"

Athrun surprised himself by trying to argue otherwise. "But this case could really make us stand out from the other firms!" He was rambling now. "This case would feature such a high-profile company, and we've never taken a claim like this before, so it would really help our experience and reputation as—,"

And Dearka shook his head, cutting Athrun off. "No, partner. We're not going to take a dud case that is sure as hell going to lose anyway. This isn't the Erin Brokovich set, and I don't want you offending anyone, dislike them as you might."

"This isn't a personal vendetta!" Athrun protested. "This has nothing to do with anything or anyone—," He shook his head vehemently.

"Yes, yes," Dearka interrupted again, regretting mentioning something that struck on Athrun's nervy spot. "Just listen to me. I don't want you sticking your neck out by running to court and asking the developers to take the multi-million blueprint elsewhere. Makes sense, partner?"

Athrun remained silent.

Clearly, it was good enough, for Dearka ran a hand through his hair, smiling devastatingly. "Ms. Yula will just have to hire some two-bit lawyer who's stupid enough to take a losing case—some lawyer who presumably didn't make it to the Heliopolis Eligible Bachelors' list." He turned away. "Well, I better get back to work. See you in a bit."

Athrun turned back to his files, feeling down very suddenly. Was it the reminder of the blasted Heliopolis Tattler article? Or was it his ego smarting? Or something else? He didn't know.

Blankly, he flipped through the text that Dearka had lobed aside, thinking that Dearka was absolutely right about the whole issue.

But about twenty-minutes later, Athrun realised that he had compiled a substantial file that had little or nothing to do with his cases at hand. In disgust, he realised that he'd even tagged pages and did some summaries of cases relevant to private nuisance.

He thought of the way that he'd lain in wait at the Cosmos café even after five people had entered and began ordering breakfast—something he'd never done before. He considered the way he'd trained his eyes on the crowds outside the window instead of being absorbed by his files—that had never happened before. Had these all been conscious decisions and actions?

Athrun didn't even know.

What he did know was that his daily routines were being disrupted, and that he had to find some way of making that stop.

Glancing at the newly-assembled file he'd lobbed aside, Athrun now knew that it was inevitable that he would be calling Kira soon. It would be just to catch up, Athrun tried to assure himself. It was only for the sake of keeping in contact with his friend that he would be calling up at all.

He looked at his cell, wondering whether to call now or not. And then he berated himself almost immediately. Athrun had always applied very strict standards of work quality and efficiency to everything in life. In the meantime, his desk was still not cleared, and his mind was not supposed to be split between anything at all. He'd already erred by bothering about private nuisance claims at all, not to mention the mornings he'd spent watching crowds.

He could feel the frustration well up in him.

"No more of this nonsense," He promised himself. He turned back to Dullindal's files and stared glumly at Mia Campbell's post-operation pictures in a bid to shock himself back to work.

Still, as he worked for the rest of the day, he caught himself wondering about various other things. While meeting other clients, he still found reasons to drive past the café that he'd waited in during the mornings, and he still thought about their chance encounter.

Later, while speaking to Dullindal about their best options at present, he thought about how Cagalli Yula had been so antagonistic, despite his efforts to make up for his mistake.

And finally, when he got back to the office, he found himself using his breaks to scour more texts.

Even now, he was spending more time and effort getting materials that would strengthen her rather weak claim. The worst thing was that she probably hadn't even fumed about him as much as he'd been upset by their encounter.

To top things off, as he had been prepared to pack his things and head back home for the weekend, Vino popped in to inform him that a check for his services had been just sent in. Quite a few years younger than everyone here in this office, Vino had not lost the puppy-dog nature of his expressions and the excitability of his ways.

"I'm going to the bank now," Vino chirped. "Just to let you know, the check was sent in today."

"Is it from Dullindal?" Athrun inquired blearily. Dullindal had promised to pay Elsman & Reid handsomely for their time to the extent of going above their usual rates. Of course, the expectations that came with this was rather stressful.

Vino shook his head. "Yes, but not all of the checks are from him." He opened an envelope and peered. "There's one from a Miss Cagalli Yula."

Suddenly, Athrun was sitting very straight in his chair. "What?"

As if his whole day—scratch that- week hadn't gone by with him remembering the dratted exchange! Why did she have to remind him of it?

Meanwhile, Vino took something out and looked at the check. "Er— it says 'Forty-three dollars only." He raised his eyes to Athrun's, looking a bit puzzled. "Is there a mistake?"

"No," Athrun said gloomily. "The consultation was a very short one."

"Oh." Vino looked at his watch. "Well, I better go. The bank's going to close soon."

"Right." Athrun managed. He swivelled his chair back, glaring at his computer screen. Unaware of his employer's grim mood, Vino skipped out of the office, presumably headed to the bank that was just a few streets down.

And Athrun's gaze fell onto his cell. He picked it up, staring at it and thinking about the ridiculousness of it all. Quite besides himself and rather against his better judgment, he dialled for Kira.

Maybe, Athrun thought grimly as he held the phone up to ear, Heine Westenfluss had been absolutely correct.

* * *

The dolphin that Kira was patting was squeaking happily and splashing water everywhere. Its mate and the other subject was in another tank, but clearly this dolphin didn't mind when it was being fed fish after fish by the researchers.

The conversations between the researchers were going on in the background, and those peppered the space and echoed even into the corridors.

"So I was saying that it's possible for them to communicate even when they may not have an inkling of where they are—," One was saying.

"But I think it's more likely that they do know where they are," Another tried arguing. "It can't be telepathy—,"

"I'm not saying it's telepathy," The first one clarified. "It's just that the numbers of the eight chart show the substantial difference between—,"

Their voices trailed off as they moved along the corridors, presumably returning to the changing rooms.

The National Heliopolis University's biodiversity research department had brought in quite a few Plant-based biologists on a joint venture recently. Kira Yamato was just one of them, and behind him was Mwu La Fllaga, who specialized in birds and particularly hawks.

At that moment, Mwu was engaged in animated conversation with some other researchers and their assistants. Tanned, athletic, well-built and golden-haired, Mwu's first career had been on the racetracks in his early youth. Since then, he'd still managed to inspire dozens of admirers in the faculty and even in the hours when he lectured because of his good-looks and irrepressible humour. It didn't even matter that there was a long scar that ran across Mwu's face- probably the result of some racing accident in the past. In fact, it gave him a rakish appeal. Kira personally pitied the many admirers since Mwu was happily married to a top engineer from the Plants that Kira had experienced the pleasure of working with as well.

Kira chuckled as he let the dolphin polish off the rest of the bucket. The rest of the team was packing up and getting ready to close for the day, but Kira was still squatting here by the enclosure because he was keen to get to know Alpha and Beta the dolphins better.

"You know," Kira said absent-mindedly to the dolphin, "I didn't expect you to be so active even in the evening. Don't you feel tired swimming all day long?" He got up even as the dolphin clicked and whirred away, feeling his cell vibrate in his lab-coat's pocket and fishing it out with a bit of difficulty.

"Hello, Athrun." Kira greeted cheerfully. He moved away from the enclosure despite Alpha's insistent cries for company and more likely, for more fish. "You called right on time—I have to tell you about the tickets— wait what?" He dried his hands on a towel that his assistant had hung up in a corner. "What's that you said? Help with her case?"

"Your sister hates solicitors' guts, Kira, but—," Athrun was stammering a little, which Kira failed to really notice. "But our firm could benefit from taking on her case. I'd like to speak to her again about her case."

"Well, I did hear that Elsman & Reid has built a reputation for taking on nearly-impossible cases." He laughed openly, adding to the sounds from the dolphins some meters away. "Truth is, when I called her up a few days ago, she made it quite clear that she didn't need anyone's help."

"She does have a chance!" Athrun insisted. "If I could just speak to her and find out more—," He trailed off, not wanting to sound too eager.

Not noticing Athrun's inner conflict or the incredibly uncomfortable fact that Athrun was fighting to come to terms with, Kira sighed a bit. "Thanks, Athrun. I don't think she wants to talk about it though, although I wish I could help her as well." He shrugged as he heard his friend's splutter. "If Cagalli wants to pay, nothing I tell her will stop her from issuing a check. I did tell her that you'd agreed to meet and hear her out of goodwill and on the basis of our friendship but she's always proper like that."

Over the phone, Athrun started protesting. "She issued me a check for the fifteen minutes! I don't need that! I didn't do anything that deserves a single cent!"

"Oh don't worry," Kira reassured him, shrugging out of his labcoat while balancing his cell between his cheek and shoulder. "She did take your time, and she's always been conscious of how time can be very valuable. She's just strong-willed, that's all." He cut through to Athrun's protests. "And by the way, I need to ask you about some tickets to Lacus' event. She asked me to invite you along yesterday, if you hadn't called, I might have completely forgot about it. Are you free tomorrow?"

"No, I'm really busy and Saturday's not a good time—," Athrun began hemming and hawing and making his usual excuses but Kira laughed.

Behind him, the dolphins were clicking away to each other. By the time the researchers got back after the weekened, Kira was sure that they'd have a mile-long's worth of graphical data.

"Come on, it won't be awkward even if her ex-fiancé and I turn up at the same event." He started peeling his yellow rubber gloves off, although the fishy smell still clung to his fingers. "Don't tell me that you're not free on a Saturday evening, Athrun. It'll be a nice outing by the quay— we haven't boated before, and I'm sure the weather will be nice. Even Cagalli's going."

"What?"

And Kira's brows shot up as he heard his friend's tone change quite audibly.

Quite mistaking his friend's question as one of solely trepidation, Kira chuckled. "Oh don't worry, she may come off as a bit hardheaded, but she usually ignores the people that she doesn't like. She won't bother you."

"No, that's not it." Athrun was speaking very fast now. "I need to ask her about the case— Elsman & Reid can help!"

While Kira couldn't quite place his finger on it, he was rather touched that Athrun treasured their friendship so much as to offer to speak to Cagalli. Surely, Kira thought fondly, Athrun's firm was not struggling when they purportedly had plenty of clients these days.

"We'll see each other tomorrow then." Kira concluded. "If you're going."

"I will be."

Admittedly, Kira did not think much of the determined note that had entered Athrun's voice. He had been too busy trying to remove his wellingtons with one hand. But at Athrun's agreement, he perked up.

"Oh, so it's settled then?" Kira said happily, folding his labcoat single-handedly. "Then I'll see you tomorrow evening for the boating event. It's open-aired, and it'll be fun." A smile spread on his face as he watched Mwu approaching with something that was definitely a cookie jar. "Lacus will be so pleased to see us all there."

"Right." Athrun's voice held some hesitation in it.

"Cagalli too, I'm sure." Kira added offhandedly, not really meaning anything by it and therefore making a rather careless comment. Thus, he was surprised to hear skepticism and a heavy splash of doubt in Athrun's tone.

"You think?"

"Well." Kira paused, thinking about it for a moment. "I guess maybe not."

There was a tiny, almost indiscernible but distinctively grim release of air at the other end of the line. "That's what I thought."


	3. Face value for peace of mind

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please**

* * *

_"Fortunately, analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist." _

_Horney, Karen  
_

* * *

**Chapter 3: Face-value for peace of mind**

* * *

Despite her best efforts to fit in with the dress code, Cagalli wasn't sure that she belonged here.

The men were wearing suits, and the ladies sported beautiful feathered hats and frilly sorts of dresses. There was champagne floating at elbow levels everywhere and every person present seemed to be part of a larger circle of friends.

She whistled low under her breath, but of course, the bouncers already knew that she didn't fit in. Even in a dress that she was wearing on Kira's instructions and more significantly, insistence, Cagalli was certainly not one of the privileged who were flouncing their evening away.

She had no hat or flowers, and was secretly wearing her brogues beneath the long skirt. While that fact remained hidden, she seemed lost, staring at everything that she could possibly lay her eyes on.

"Raise your arms please, Miss."

She obliged, her eyes still glued to the other guests in the distance.

Some others were stepping carefully over the boardwalks that had temporarily been nailed over grassy banks, feeding some swans that Cagalli had never seen in the quay before. Those had probably been planted in, she thought, her lip curling.

Still, the quay was looking festive and lovely today, and Cagalli swallowed at its splendor. In the meantime, the bouncer doing the checks was taking every opportunity to dig through her things and simultaneously insult her intelligence. He opened her bag, drawing out a water bottle. "Is this flammable?"

She gave him a funny look. "You mean the plastic?"

"No. I meant the clear liquid inside. Is this petrol?" The bouncer asked again, a bit thickly.

She kept her face straight, wondering if terrorists ever admitted to being terrorists. "I could drink it to prove that it isn't."

"And what is this?" He proceeded to pull out a stress ball that had somehow ended up in her tote.

"Oh that?" Cagalli looked at him directly. "It's a bomb. Pull the stray thread and it goes off."

Her growing impatience was not lost on him, but he could not find anything more to accuse her of carrying. So the bouncer gave her one last disapproving look before jabbing a finger to indicate the already obvious direction she was to head in.

While there were at least five white structures that probably housed the more important guests and acted as a contingency plan, it was fairly obvious which tent Lacus Clyne and her entourage were occupying. The tent was the largest, was decorated with streams of silvery chiffon, and had the most number of bouncers outside holding off the guests that walked by and tried to peek in.

She would have declined the invitation, except that it would have been rude to a person that she had not met but had every intention of getting to know.

While Kira didn't talk much about Lacus and hadn't quite expressed whether he was actually serious about her, they'd been going around for slightly more than a month now and usually as privately as they could. Generally, Kira never expressed much about his private relationships to Cagalli, for he much preferred to talk about other things if at all.

The overhead fans spun busily as Cagalli wandered in. She stared as a troop of people swarmed past, ignoring her. They were holding up all sorts of glittery things and arguing about which one was better.

Around them, a bunch of colorful, noisy orb-things were bouncing and shouting suggestions with voices like robot children. Cagalli could only assume that those were digital planners too, given that the orbs were shouting various things as some kind of reminder.

"Haro!"

One orange one flew towards her, its ears spinning lazily, but she caught it and lobbed it back to the crowd of people passing. Digital planners came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and Kira's own was a small green bird that hopped on his shoulder whenever he went to work. These though, were noisier than she'd expected.

Another— a blue one this time— bounced to her. "Haro!"

Somewhat amused by the chirpiness, she wondered if the programmer thought that accents made for good humour. Still, she went along with it. "Hello."

It seemed to be satisfied at her half-hearted attempt at courtesy, and it rolled back after the retreating crowd who were about to exit the tent. But the whole bunch of people were so busy in their discussion that they scarcely noticed her presence.

"What is that supposed to be?" She asked the last person left in the tent.

Standing right before her, Kira laughed. "So you made it here then. Lacus, unfortunately, got called off just ten minutes ago."

She sighed. "I got a lift from a colleague, but I'm still a little late—sorry about that." Distracted, she looked around. "This is really something." Cagalli told her twin. While empty of the key person she'd been expecting to see, the tent was still rather impressive. "I really didn't expect to be invited to Lacus Clyne's personal tent."

"She thought it would be nice if we could all meet here." He told her.

As far as public persona was concerned, Lacus Clyne was a wildly-received pop star and quite a well-known humanitarian. She was also a rather eloquent spokesperson for various wildlife conservation boards. While Cagalli was not sure of how Kira had met, seeing as Kira had never offered much information on this, Cagalli was sure they'd met because of Kira's involvement with marine biology and his work in general.

"She was planning to meet you privately," Kira told her, gesturing to the exit of the tent. "But there were some problems with the schedule and she had to leave to get some briefing done. She promised that she would find us later though. Shall we go around first?"

"Well, why not?" Cagalli stepped out, wondered what Lacus Clyne would be like in person. The daughter of a Plant one-time politician and businessman had always cut a glamorous figure. No doubt, the many bouncers were proof of that.

She studied Kira now as they moved towards the quay. Like the other men, he was wearing a suit, and looked every bit the strapping lad even if he could never look exactly sophisticated. He'd always been slightly awkward, never mind that he was twenty-eight and had come into his own. But even with his boyish clumsiness and willingness to fade into the background, he seemed to attract the high-maintenance kind of girls.

"So what's Lacus Clyne like in person?" Cagalli was curious.

"Oh, she's a nice person." Kira said vaguely, as was his usual way. They made their way to a tree, enjoying the way the willow's fronds dipped in the wind.

Granted, Kira had never said much about this person that he'd met or the circumstances of their meeting. But this was Lacus Clyne, for crying out loud! She could not be anything less than high-profile. Yet, Cagalli was somewhat familiar with his previous girlfriend and had decided that anyone would be an improvement from her.

But as she stared at her twin, he looked back at her and immediately, she could sense that he'd always had more on his mind.

She squinted. "What?"

"Let him help you." Kira insisted right away, cutting straight to the chase.

"What?"

"Athrun's a good person. He's not one of those sharks."

"Oh." She smiled irreverently. "That."

"He's harmless." It was strange that her twin was using this kind of adjective, but then Cagalli attributed it to how he worked with all sorts of poisonous, viciously-evolved sea creatures on a day-to-day basis. Besides, Cagalli thought, the context wasn't incongruent with the average solicitor in her opinion.

She raised an eyebrow in response. "This is the guy who basically ripped your then-girlfriend's father to shreds in court, if I heard correctly."

Kira paused, clearing recalling Fllay Alster, and Cagalli immediately regretted what she'd mentioned. There had been plenty of nasty episodes without Cagalli having to emphasize those.

Shaking her head, Cagalli muttered, "Sorry. Didn't mean to bring it up."

"It's fine." He told her quietly. "Like you said, we're not together anymore. Besides, Athrun's very professional. He's always been a friend, even when he found out that Fllay's father was his then-client's opponent. He was very decent about it when he called me up to explain, even though I never needed an explanation. Believe me on this one—he's not a shark."

"All of them are sharks, Kira." The conviction she said this with made her feel even more justified for having left the way she had on the first meeting with the solicitor that Kira had convinced her to visit. "It's the nature of their job."

"But he can help you. Trust me on this." Kira was unwilling to give up. There was always that mild countenance about him, but there was stubbornness in his tone now.

"Look," Cagalli said as patiently as she could, "I understand that you're his good friend."

Dappled in the shade, Kira corrected her. "Best friend, actually."

"Well, yes, that. But he's in that profession and so he knows all the lawyer-jokes dissing the lack of ethics in there." She narrowed her eyes, shuffling one foot and hearing the leaves crackle beneath her shoes. "Clearly, he must be used to it—he's probably even fine with it."

"That's only because he's very mature and probably even drier than the month-old granola crackers that my colleague feeds to the birds." Kira pointed out. "And of course he appears impenetrable, but I'm sure he minded when you refused his help so flatly and—,"

"I appreciate what you're trying to do, Kira." Cagalli interjected. She shook her head. "But I'm telling you that I can handle it myself."

"Really?" Kira's voice could not be ridded of doubt. "I just want to help you, Cagalli. I don't get many chances to come down to Heliopolis and see how you're doing. I thought I'd do you a favor by introducing you to him, seeing as you're letting me camp with you." He looked at her quietly, smiling a bit. "Seeing also that we're twins and we're supposed to help each other."

Touched, she looked at him with a little sigh. "We did miss out on all those years, didn't we?"

He nodded. "We never hit it off at first too. That cruise was a disaster back then."

"You were on some kind of school trip right?" She made a funny face. "I was on holiday—a decade ago!"

He looked approvingly at her. "I was probably in a hurry or a bit blind back then, since everybody on board was screaming that the cruiser was going to sink." He laughed amusedly. "Weren't we all nonplussed when it turned out that it was only a safety-drill in the end? Well, at least I got to bump into you before we even found out a year later that we were related and twins."

"Well, for what it's worth, I'd let you in bunk in at my place anytime without thinking of repayment." She sighed, punching him lightly in the arm. "Just like how you insisted that I take the last life-jacket when we first met on the cruise all those years ago."

"You were a girl." He said matter-of-factly. "It was the right thing to do."

"I don't like your use of past-tense." Cagalli teased him. "I have to say though, I didn't think that my benefactor was coincidentally the twin that I was supposed to reunite with." She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I don't think my father and your foster parents ever expected us to be on the same cruiser at any point."

"Same. But those were the good old times." Kira grinned. "Back then, I thought that the stranger I was trying to help was a boy before you took off your cap."

"Unfortunately, Kira, you weren't the last person to make that mistake of thinking that I was male." Cagalli shook her head, reminded of an unpleasant encounter earlier in the week.

"Well, I suppose overall, our meeting was a strange but fortunate one."

"Strange but fortunate." Cagalli echoed fondly. She looked a bit sad, Kira saw, and her cheerfulness did not reach her eyes. "My father did tell the truth in the end."

"He also asked me to look after you."Kira reminded. "Seeing that I'm your elder brother."

She scowled. "Nobody knows for sure. I still assert my seniority."

He laughed. "Well either way, Athrun can help you." He leaned forward, studying her. "Give me one good reason why you think he can't."

"Before I start arguing my case again, I'm going to need some ammunition." She glanced around, looking for the waiters who seemed to be floating and mingling amongst the crowd. "Where are those drinks?"

"Here, you can have this."

"Thanks." Cagalli took something that some passing waiter offered her and sipped. Beyond the tree, picnic blankets had been spread out and some guests were enjoying themselves with the usual wine and cheese. She cast her eye over the scene spread out along the banks, and decided that it reminded her of some Renoir painting. "I thought it would be stuffier than this, but this is quite nice."

Kira however, was preoccupied with something and was waving to someone in the distance.

She cast her eyes in the direction that he was facing, and spotted, amongst the many tuxedo-clad, suit-wearing people and formally-dressed guests, a familiar face.

Already, the solicitor that her brother had introduced this week was weaving his way through the crowd and he came to stand before them both.

With some shock, Cagalli involuntarily took a step back and only managed not to spill her martini over herself. The olive swam indignantly as she steadied her hand, but before she could protest, he had taken a step nearer.

Even as Kira greeted him happily, Athrun looked at her wryly, not saying anything. If Cagalli had felt slightly out of place here especially in her get-up, she wondered if the evening would get any less scintillating with someone she had not hit it off with.

"Hello, Kira." Athrun said. He seemed relaxed and rather languid as he spoke. "It's nice to see you again, Ms. Yula. Both of you had a good week, I hope?"

"Yes." Cagalli said defiantly. "Despite an unpleasant start, yes." She was quite glad that she looked like any other person in the place now— it would be easier to move off and fit herself into some circle of guests.

At the thought of that, she lifted her chin, looking at him imperiously. She thought he narrowed his eyes, but then she wasn't sure. All the same, she had somehow noticed that he had curiously vivid, emerald eyes—eyes that seemed knowing and skeptical all at once.

"No more talk of work, Athrun. It was about time that you got here!" Kira told him. "Here, let's get you something to drink." He turned around, signaling to one of the waiters.

He was offered a drink by the waiter and he dutifully took one, although he did not seem keen on putting the glass to his lips at all. Instead, he looked at her. "It's good to see you again."

Staring at Athrun Reid, she found herself irrationally insulted that he had remembered her name and that he was bothering with niceties. A few awkward moments passed as Kira looked expectantly at her, as if expecting her to respond and prove that she could remember his friend's name too. Finally, she looked accusingly at Kira. "So why is Mr. Reid here at the quay?"

"Athrun, please." He said easily, even if he did not give an explanation that her question tried to provoke. Far too easily, Cagalli thought. "Mr. Reid makes me sound too old."

She looked at him mistrustfully, not offering the same option to him. Privately, she was recalling Kira mentioning that Athrun Reid had been featured in some manhunt of some sort. To be fair, she noted, he looked very sharp in his suited attire, even when he wasn't wearing a tie and he had unbuttoned the top two slots of his shirt to accommodate the sultriness of the afternoon air.

His tenor's voice was naturally smooth with a sustained kind of calmness to it, and she was sure that even if he mumbled or muttered, it would have come off more as a murmur or a caressing whisper.

He was the kind of fellow that she was particularly suspicious of.

"Now, Cagalli," Kira interjected hastily, "It's not like Athrun doesn't have an invitation too— show her, Athrun."

Cagalli watched mutely as Athrun drew the same embossed slip from his breast pocket. His voice was droll as he regarded her quite specifically. "I suppose the security guards can't throw me out now— regardless of the extremely useful and detailed security checks."

For no good reason that was known to herself, Cagalli flushed, and instantly, she cursed herself for it. Athrun Reid of course, picked up on it and his eyebrows lifted a little.

"Like I've said before," Kira said mildly. "He's a friend of mine, Cagalli. He was the one who gave me Torii. That got me interested in mechanics and animal patterns of communication, you know. Athrun's very good with mechanics, beyond his job."

"I see." Cagalli said helplessly, recalling the green toy that had been quite a clever piece of work in its original form. Some modifications had been done to it since then, and it was a handy planner for Kira now, as she understood it.

"It was a hobby in the past," Athrun qualified quickly. "All rusty now, of course."

"Right." She looked at Athrun, wondering what else he did in his spare time, if he had any. Curiously, he looked back at her, his face impassive and rather hard to read.

A bit disconcerted, she shook her head, taking a step away to move outside the tree's circumference. "If you'll excuse me."

"Where are you going?" Kira said, a bit puzzled.

Cagalli paused, not quite sure why she felt an urge to leave. But then she shrugged. "To explore."

"But the event's going to start!"

"I'll find you by then." She found herself eager to get away, suddenly uncomfortable for no good reason at all. "I'll see you in a bit."

But even as she moved away, she could sense her twin's friend staring at her back.

* * *

He spotted her in the distance. To be more accurate, he spotted her dress with its bright turquoise flashing out even from between the shrubs and hanging lichens from the thick trees.

Hurrying now, he moved over some thick roots and prepared to call her.

When Cagalli had left, Athrun had asked his friend haplessly, "Does she really dislike solicitors so much?"

Kira had been rather vague about the whole issue. But then, Athrun knew why she was so antagonistic towards him. He'd been rather rude to her in the first place. And so, when it had been five minutes to the start of the event, Athrun had volunteered to find her himself. Of course, he wasn't sure what he could do to erase the rather poor first impression she'd gained of him, but at very least, he wanted to help the situation.

As he got nearer, he noticed that she wasn't alone. Not sure if he was interrupting anything, Athrun paused.

She was there alright. Speaking to some man. The person was quite tall, and he was in a white suit that made Athrun wonder how he could sit down without fear of having a thousand people's traces imprinted on his back.

All the same, the man sounded very confident.

"You're looking fine tonight, Cagalli," He drawled, lighting a cigar. From where he stood, Athrun privately agreed. Even though the branches obscured most of everything, Athrun could see the dip of the dress' back that revealed a great deal of Cagalli's shoulders. All the same, she did not seem pleased at the compliment, and Athrun could see her trying to keep her fists from clenching. She did not even answer as her companion continued.

Athrun took about three seconds to decide. He had a few cardinal rules— he never intervened when it concerned strangers, and he never eavesdropped. In the third second, he created another rule for himself—if he eavesdropped, he would do it without being discovered. Having thought this, he got closer, but hid himself behind a tree.

The two were in something of a one-sided conversation.

"I didn't expect to see you here, but once I spotted you, I knew you'd come back." The man's voice was mocking.

She did not say anything. Athrun strained his ears, wondering whether it was just awkwardness or whether there was indeed a strained atmosphere that he sensed on Cagalli's part.

"You're a real lady tonight. Your father would approve." He blew smoke lazily into the air. "If I knew that you'd be here tonight, I would have sent a dress for you myself."

Athrun could not see her face clearly, but her tone sounded rather controlled as the man blew smoke was blown into her face. "I'd like to be alone, thanks."

Now this was strange for someone on a first-name basis with her. Athrun gathered that she was either in a very foul mood, or that she did not want to be addressed like this by whoever it was that had come along. The man who'd come by now grinned, flicking his wrist out and trailing the air with the cigar. "No can do. This is a public space."

Cagalli narrowed her eyes, although Athrun could not see this. "And that's why they don't allow public nuisances."

From where he stood stiffly, afraid to twitch his foot in case some twig cracked, Athrun stared, wondering whether it was his imagination or it was really dislike in her voice. Even though she seemed generally impatient, she hadn't even used such animosity towards Athrun. She'd seemed to want to ignore him, for sure, but with this man, she seemed more likely to sock him in the face.

He saw the man's jaw tighten visibly. When the man spoke, there was definitely a jeer in his voice. "I didn't think that you'd come back to Heliopolis." There was a smile lingering on his lips as he enjoyed his cigar. "Didn't your father promise that the first thing you'd do after finishing your education was to report to me? I thought you'd disappeared! How did you get to Heliopolis and how long have you been here?"

She wasn't answering now. Athrun wondered what was going on. Hadn't she lived here for all her life? Come to think of it, he realized, he knew little about her personally, even if he felt more than equipped to deal with the place that she lived in.

The man was moving around her, observing her. She stood still however, rooted to the ground, for perhaps she was too stubborn to leave the place.

"Where do you work now?" His voice was very soft and sneering, but Athrun could hear most of it.

She wasn't answering still.

He sighed. "Time really flies."

"Like my shoe at a cockroach."

Athrun raised a brow. That had sounded less than friendly, even if it might have been delivered with some humour.

"Well know," He smirked back. "You've really grown up since we played together, haven't you?"

Her voice was trembling with rage when she replied. "This isn't the place to be reminiscing or holding a conversation. For that matter—," Her fists were clenching. "There will never be a place or time wherein there's anything to say between us."

Athrun squinted, trying to see her expression. But perhaps he needn't have bothered. The sarcasm had gone out of her words and real anger had entered. Obscured, she still managed to radiate displeasure.

"My dear," He laid a hand on her shoulder. "I think you're mistaken. You can't get very far without me."

"I'm afraid so." She said viciously. "You always seem to be hanging around like a fly on a sticky horse butt. I can't seem to get far away enough from you." Her voice grew a little louder. "Weren't you supposed to be in the Earth Alliance?"

"Why, yes I was. Even now, I'm thinking of continuing my further studies."

"The further the better." Her tone was very sharp.

He laughed—a silly, affected sound. "That's why you're so interesting, Cagalli." He sighed indulgently. "You're a little wildcat."

Without removing the hand that was stroking her cheek now, she made a sound that Athrun realized was a hiss. "I said I'd like to be alone, Yuuna. If you're incapable of understanding that, then I'll have to leave first."

But Yuuna lobbed his cigar to the side, stamping on it. Athrun winced as the crackle of twigs shot into the air— there was a violence to the action that hadn't gone unnoticed. "You're too feisty for your own good, Cagalli." His voice was taunting as he placed both hands on her shoulders. "Where do you work now? Do you even have a place to live in?" He was circling her again. "Did those debts drown you in the end?"

She said nothing. Athrun did not understand anything, but it did not seem to matter anymore. The questions in his head had nothing to do with what Yuuna was talking about. Instead, Athrun was asking why Cagalli was still standing here.

Athrun stared, somehow praying for something; wanting her to throw a comeback, wanting her to throw a punch, wanting some kind of adverse reaction to the person that was invading her personal space. But she was silent, perhaps trying to control her temper.

The man that she'd called Yuuna was moving his face closer, and yet she seemed either too stubborn or petrified. Athrun could not be sure. "Who are you accompanying tonight to be here in this place?"

And suddenly, there was a violent shove from Cagalli. She pushed, an almost blind force, making Yuuna stumble back. But he lunged forward with an enraged cry, his hand outstretched and flying towards her cheek. "Wretch!"

Somehow, as Athrun flinched, he saw that Cagalli had reacted first. She'd hit Yuuna first, despite his preparation to hit her. There was a shout that echoed in the clearing, and Athrun only managed to control his body from flinching reflexively and creating some sound.

"You dare lay a hand on me?" She said. Her voice was quiet, but it was shaking.

"That should be my line," He retorted. He sounded like he was in pain, and Athrun could see that he was holding his palm—the same plam he'd intended as a weapon—against the cheek she'd made contact with. She hadn't slapped him— she'd punched him. "I could punish you for this—this is assault, if not battery."

She looked up. "Why don't you call for your bodyguards?" Her voice was still fierce, but it seemed to be cracking. "Why not seek redress? You'd have all the time and resources in the world."

Athrun heard her gulp, and suddenly, he knew he could not bear to watch any longer. If he had hesitated about showing himself in the face of her steadiness, he could not bear to watch as she fought back this way.

Within two seconds, he'd decided.

So he stepped out, clearing his throat. He forced indulgence— the same kind he'd heard Yuuna use— into his voice. "So there you are, Ms. Yula."

The man called Yuuna turned, a bit shocked at the intrusion.

Frankly, Athrun was surprised at himself. A cardinal rule he usually stuck to was that he did not intervene in fights between strangers, and another rule that he upheld was that if one ought never to eavesdrop, and that if one eavesdropped, should best remain undiscovered. He'd broken all those rules.

That, or he'd created another rule that superseded the other cardinal ones.

He looked at Cagalli, not even sure what his new rule was. The more functioning part of his common sense however, told him that it revolved around her and his sudden new willingness to interfere in matter that wouldn't have concerned him.

Cagalli, however was not looking at him. She seemed a bit unfamiliar with the place suddenly—her eyes were darting to the clearing as if there was an escape she'd wanted.

"I heard your voice from over there," Athrun said smoothly. Only his training stopped him from expressing his nervousness. She did not look up, but he continued as blithely as he could manage. "The boats are ready, I think."

"Who the hell are you?" Yuuna cut in rudely. Suddenly upset for a reason he could not put his finger on, Athrun ignored him.

"Come on, Ms. Yula." Athrun said firmly, taking her by the elbow lightly and pulling her a bit. Yuuna was staring at Athrun but Athrun could not care less. In fact, he found more insistence in his voice than what he thought he could muster. "The boats are this way."

A bit dazed, she stared but trudged after him as he pulled her along. She could see Yuuna glaring at Athrun's back, and she wondered if she ought to explain anything. But between a rock and a hard place, there was little explanation to be made, and unwillingly, she found herself standing on the deck, in a queue.

Still not looking at her, Athrun muttered, "Your brother asked me to accompany you. He met a colleague and went to say hello…" He trailed off, thinking of how he'd gone to find her but had ended up eavesdropping and watching what had possibly been a tiff between his friend's twin and someone else.

It was very strange, Cagalli thought, that she was standing next to a person she certainly did not want anything to do with, even while such charming tunes were being played and the music was filling the air. If she had come out of her daze, she found that she was being cornered by many other people now.

Next to her, Athrun stood stolidly, his eyes trained in the distance.

"Isn't this nice?" She heard some girl coo from behind her. The girl was clutching at her partner's arm, looking all excited about the prospect of being towed out into the lake. "It's all old-fashioned and the rowing's manual! We'll be alone together, darling."

"What is this?" Cagalli muttered. Her voice was still hoarse. She looked around as a hundred water-lanterns floated tranquilly, set off into the lake. In front of them, at least thirty boats were floating, giant, elongated flower petals in the water. She was glad that Athrun Reid seemed to be focused on the boats—his eyes were trained in the distance and she rubbed her eyes as quickly as she could while he didn't notice.

Everyone was murmuring their appreciation at the boats waiting before them. Some were already running forward to take their pick, although they were hustled back into the orderly queues. The boats were indeed, without motors, and those had been equipped with attached oars.

Cagalli blanched, taking a step back and bumping into another person who was queuing. The person made a sound of annoyance, but Cagalli was far too upset to apologize, seeing as she was cornered.

She mumbled, "This is a bad idea—,"

Next to her, Athrun however, deftly took off his jacket and began rolling up his sleeves.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Cagalli was still looking at her hands in her lap. Athrun Reid, thankfully, was rowing busily and steadily and looking very preoccupied with the oars. He was handling those well enough, and it had not occurred to her to take one of the oars until he'd started rowing and worked up a steady rhythm.

At this point, she was somehow feeling awkward even though she had been prepared to ignore him for as long as the boat ride took. The little exchange with Yuuna had surely been noted by Athrun, and even if he did not say anything, she was upset that he'd seen anything at all. Even now, she wasn't sure if he'd been eavesdropping, but she was too upset to think or care about it.

But now he was looking at her, and she could feel the colour rise beneath her cheeks. As if to mock her, some stray ducks started squabbling from the nearby reeds. Feeling quite uneasy, Cagalli rubbed her face with her hand, biting her lips a little.

"Is anything the matter?" Athrun asked, a bit alarmed at how she was starting to look ill. Granted, she seemed rather rattled, but she was starting to look more disturbed than that.

Pausing with the oars, he leaned forward to study her. Now, their boat moved gently and further out into the lake—the other boats having made off further in the distance by now. The reeds they passed had seemed to become shorter as the water grew deeper, and there were dragonflies flitting and dipping slightly over the water.

And Cagalli broke her silence, looking blankly at her hands. "No."

In her heart, she cursed her carelessness. Yuuna had spotted her, after all. Why was he here at this event, if he was supposed to be travelling in the Earth Alliance, or at very least, stayed in Coppernicus?

Athrun was still staring at her, and all too late, she saw that she had been sitting slumped with her feet pulled up and the dress parting slightly to reveal her shoes.

She glanced at him briefly, and then dropped her eyes, feeling remarkably unsophisticated. A bit clumsily, she shifted her feet, conscious that he could see how she had been wearing brown and white brogues despite the long, elegant dress that Lacus had assigned her. He was staring, indeed, and she thought she saw his lips twitch at the obvious contradiction of her shoe wear and attire.

Sighing inwardly at how she'd been found out, Cagalli cast her eyes down. "Alright. Go ahead. But don't laugh too loudly in case you frighten the ducks."

"Laugh?" His eyes twinkled. "Why would I?"

Cagalli sighed. "You saw my shoes right?"

"I like those." He said casually. "I didn't think I'd see a girl wearing those— oxfords, are those called?"

"Brogues."

"Right. I didn't think I'd see those, especially not with a dress." He smiled a bit. "But I do like those."

"I did come dressed and prepared to row." She looked away, thankful that he was at least pretending that it was normal for one to wear an evening dress and walking shoes together.

Now, she tried to be fascinated with the dragonflies playing in the growing evening. "Maybe I should row a bit."

"What for?" He was clearly taken aback, for he had immediately assumed the task of rowing the oars upon their settling into the boat.

"It doesn't seem fair to make you do all the work."

He smiled, and she saw that it was a very quiet, slight smile.

For one, she'd never seen him smile like this before. For another, he seemed rather harmless, even if he was that brand of person she was always suspicious of.

"You're a lady—it's right that you're sitting back and relaxing." He studied her. "In fact, you should be holding a parasol like the other ladies on their boats." There was a slight dryness to his tone that she realized she rather liked.

"Oh don't be ridiculous," Cagalli scoffed, trying to mask her discomfort at how easily she was getting used to his presence. "There's not much sun now. In fact—," She looked at the sky. "It's going to get much darker and colder soon."

"I can see that the Victorian theme didn't inspire you at all." Athrun said wryly.

"No more than it inspired you." Cagalli pointed out. He was wearing a suit, but it was a stark black with a white shirt and had neither embroidery nor lace details that the other men were wearing for the night. Kira even, had done the minimum and put on a cravat, but it was exceedingly obvious that his friend had done all but pay attention to the theme.

He had taken off the jacket to row with more ease, and it was exceedingly obvious that he had been at work before he'd gotten here. They made a strange pair sitting there, she realized—neither of them really keen on the event and yet somehow stuck in the same place.

Biting her lips, Cagalli asked. "Were you eavesdropping just now?"

He looked at her straight-facedly. "No."

"How can I be sure that you're not lying?" Cagalli accused.

"You can't be." He kept his poker expression. "But you could save yourself from worrying by taking what I say."

She frowned. "Why would I take a solicitor's words at face-value?"

"It's good enough for some peace of mind." He did not miss a beat.

She looked down, not saying anything anymore.

Unfortunately, Athrun did not take her cue to return her sullenness. In fact, he sounded almost gentle. "I suppose you already do have the worst impression of me possible, so this seems to be a terrible experience for you, Ms. Yula."

Cagalli didn't answer, although the better of her guts allowed her to look at him directly. He had picked up the oars again and begun to row, and the lights floating onto the water cast strange, darting glows onto their reflections.

"I'll try to keep this as painless as possible," Athrun said diffidently, rowing steadily still. "Seeing as you don't like all solicitors." He laughed, and she was surprised to hear something akin to a teasing delight in his voice. "And definitely not one who treated you so roughly and unnecessarily too."

Cagalli stared at him, realizing that he was trying to apologise for the rough tumble of their first meeting.

A tiny twinge of guilt crept at her as she recalled Athrun Reid. He had been Kira's friend, even if he had been a lawyer and had certainly gone off on the wrong footing by mistaking her as a thief and worse—a male. Besides, he'd helped her out of a sticky situation, and while she wasn't sure he had ought to be there in the first place or whether he'd intended to help her, he still had prevented anything worse from happening.

"So how are you acquainted with Kira again?" Cagalli asked slowly. She was suddenly glad that she was making conversation with him, for she was eager to keep his thoughts away from what he must have seen when she'd had that exchange with Yuuna.

If he was surprised by her question and her obvious try at making conversation, Athrun Reid got over it quickly enough. "I went to pre-school with him. In Coppernicus."

"Oh." Some moments of silence passed as she contemplated what he'd said. "So you've met Haruma and Caridad."

"That's right." He told her. His voice was soft as he rowed easily. "I can't remember much though—it was nearly twenty two years ago. I left for the Plants soon after that and we lost contact."

While he had spoken, Cagalli had been unconsciously assessing him.

In all fairness to the person sitting across her, he seemed competent enough. When she'd happened to mention the firm's name at some point in the week, all she had heard were good things about Elsman & Reid being very efficient and very reasonably-priced. Perhaps their prices were because they weren't very established yet, but the partnership had certainly taken on some very high-profile cases. Already, there was talk that Elsman & Reid was set on a very straight and sure path to success.

Cagalli, for one, trusted her instincts more than rumors and hearsay. She had seen Athrun Reid for herself, and objectively, he seemed to translate every breath and every word he took into a process of efficiency. There was a cool, even calculative rationality about the way he carried himself. That had been precisely the thing that had made her dislike him and feel mistrustful, but now, she wondered if those character traits were good after all. Certainly, he'd handled Yuuna without wasting a single word on him.

"So what is it that I can do to make you forgive me for manhandling you during our first meeting then?" Athrun asked offhandedly. He looked at her briefly, still rowing in that leisurely manner he seemed to carry all the time.

She paused, wondering what to say. But he seemed sincere enough and in the interest of the remaining boat ride, Cagalli decided to take his advice and accept his words at face-value.

"We definitely got on a bad start, but it's not really an issue." She looked at him directly. "I suppose anyone could have made that mistake. You wanted to help that person—you were too eager to."

"A bit too eager." He said wryly. "I jumped to conclusions—literally, perhaps."

She laughed, surprising both of them.

"Nonetheless," Cagalli hesitated, wondering how they'd even started talking. "You didn't mean to do more than help."

His eyes moved to hers, and she looked away, suddenly losing her nerve. Perhaps she was exhausted after that exchange with a person she hadn't expected to meet, but she found that she could not look at Athrun Reid in the eye.

The silence of the crickets and the occasional duck quarrel created a background less awkward than what it might have potentially been. He was taking a rest, and the oars were still for now. "Ms. Yula, may I ask whether you are serious about getting an injunction?"

She looked at him sharply. "I think I made it clear, Mr. Reid. Whether or not we got off to a bad start, and whether we're on a better footing now, I will be pursuing action against the relevant corporation and that will be without any solicitor's help." A bit pityingly, Cagalli kept her gaze on him. "I think it's best if I apologize for my behavior that day too, Mr. Reid. Regardless, I don't really need anyone to represent me."

He watched her for a moment or two, wondering how to begin explaining himself. And quietly, he said, "You don't have much of a chance."

"I don't think a solicitor should be telling me that," Cagalli said sceptically. "I understand that you are a very good lawyer, Mr. Reid, and that your firm is doing well. You don't need this case to meet the bottom-line, as I would imagine."

"No." He agreed readily. "It does seem ironic that the salesman should be trusted by a purchaser of goods." He shook his head. "But I'm saying this as your twin's friend, Ms. Yula. I don't deny that I am a salesman for my firm's services and that my firm can do a lot with the basic facts you're facing, but Ms. Yula, I am speaking in the capacity of someone who Kira asked help from."

She sighed, softening a bit, despite her better judgment. "You know, Mr. Reid, I appreciate how you treasure your friendship with my twin. But I'm twenty-eight, the elder of us two, and certainly not a child that needs his protection anymore than any other adult would."

"Well then," He said boldly, "It is true that we're all adults and make our own decisions. Kira knows that, and he wouldn't mind if I flatly refused to take your case. But Ms. Yula," Athrun looked directly at her, "I've prepared a file that I am willing to show you at any point in time. You're going to need some help if you want that injunction awarded to you."

"You gathered material?" Her voice registered her surprise. "Like, case authorities and all that?"

Athrun Reid was a tough nut, Cagalli realized. Other solicitors would have gotten the message and quickly declined her case with how unfriendly she had been. But Athrun had seemed to know what he was going on about— he'd even been able to surmise offhand what she was getting at even in their first meeting.

Even now, he looked at her with that slightly disbelieving, impeccably correct, polite smile, and Cagalli had wondered if he was a little too discerning for his own good. Still, Athrun Reid had rather good control over himself, a clear wit he'd used to barb her a few times within fifteen minutes, and he was particularly eye-catching too. A pity he was in a dirty line then.

"That's right." He looked fearlessly at her. "If you don't mind, I can pass it to you."

"Why?" Her expression registered how stunned she was.

"It didn't take that much time." Athrun assured her.

But privately, Athrun was feeling a bit guilty and he tried not to think of how he'd been supposed to be working on Dullindal's case. All the same, he noticed that she was impressed, even if reluctantly, and he congratulated himself on having scored one. But if he had originally hoped to silence her apparent disdain for solicitors, now he wondered what she thought of him.

"I—," She seemed to lose her eloquence. Speechlessly, she shook her head, her amazement spreading onto her face. He had been right then, Athrun realized, when he'd seen her for the first time. She was the sort who'd always lose at cards—the sort he never wanted to have as witnesses because they always collapsed while being grilled on the stand.

But why, why did she have to look so attractive in that strange revelation of menswear shoes instead of what should have been dainty heels? She'd even done something rather unlady-like and rolled up the sleeves of her dress to her elbows, revealing fine honeyed forearms. He came to the conclusion that she did not care much for porcelain skin as much as the sun. Sitting as she did, she did not look entirely elegant but came off as natural and rather appealing still.

"I—," Her voice sounded a bit hesitant. "Did Kira put you up to this?"

"He did ask me to try and help," Athrun told her, hiding his other thoughts.

"But I already have my evidence that the construction will be too much over the next month to fit within the required regulations the Heliopolis council for area five has specified." She said finally. The sharpness was back in her tone, and she was looking rather defensive again.

"It isn't enough." Athrun told her honestly.

"Why isn't it?" She retorted, going slightly pink in the cheeks.

"You might not have realized this, but the solicitor is always fronting the claim his client makes as a matter of strategy. There's a lot that goes into preparing for those few hours or sometimes even minutes you have in the courtroom. There's research, there's time spent finding supporting cases, there's time spent on tweaking the arguments. That's why solicitors get paid so much."

She said nothing, but he could tell that she was thinking about what he'd said.

"If you don't mind me asking," Athrun said cautiously. "Is it the issue of legal costs that's putting you off the option of hiring solicitors in general?"

She shook her head, looking a bit distracted now, her voice fading and becoming small and soft. "I made inquiries a long time ago, Mr. Reid. I saved up for the day when I would bring an action." She bit her lips a bit. "Back in the day when I thought legal advice from solicitors' was beneficial, of course."

Athrun frowned, not really understanding. What did she mean when she had mentioned saving up? And back in the day? How long ago had that been? He looked at her, trying to decipher what she had murmured.

Now, Cagalli flinched, looking upset. From where he sat, he could see her expression, and he realized that it had probably been the same one she'd shown when Yuuna Roma Seiran had been taunting her. While he wasn't quite sure what that or even what this was about, Athrun wondered what was really getting at her. She looked trapped, and there was tension in her hands. He half-expected her to run, but she had no way of marching off, given that they were in the middle of a lake. He watched her chew her lip, and he was suddenly aware of why those had looked a bit chapped the first time he'd seen her.

She was a very stubborn person, Athrun realized suddenly, someone who fought even when she knew she would lose. She had been petrified back there, and he had sensed her fear and dislike, but she'd still stood there and refused to back down. Perhaps, that was the inevitability of any stance that Cagalli Yula took. If she'd been someone less interesting or less compelling, he'd have left her to rot already. At the same time though, he wanted to convince her to trust him for reasons he wasn't quite so sure about anymore.

To calm them both down, Athrun took in a deep breath. "How would you know if your evidence proves the things you need to establish in court?"

"Nobody knows that." She shot back.

"But I know." He said. He was surprised by the confidence that bordered on desperation in his voice. He wondered what on earth was making him sound so fervent, but there was no mistaking the conviction in his voice. "I know how to help you get that injunction."

Cagalli narrowed her eyes. "I can get it on my own. I know what I need to prove."

"Well, I give you credit for knowing about what you want to do, but how are you going to achieve that without help?"

"I think I've made it very clear," Cagalli said, looking visibly unhappy at the sounds that were echoing around them now. There were frogs singing in the distance, filling the air with soft, strange sounds. "I know that I'm the only one in this apartment suing, out of six occupiers. But even if I'm alone, I'm going to make sure I win. And being alone in this is fine— it doesn't mean that I can't win."

He studied her, wondering what it was exactly that could drive her to do this.

"You might be able to win," He countered. "But with legal counsel, you have a much higher chance of winning." He looked at her, and suddenly he didn't know where his words were spilling out from. "I'm making you an offer that you can't refuse, Ms. Yula. I'm not doing this for any payment—I just want to help my friend."

She smiled wryly, beginning to shake her head and create a comeback. But he cut in before she could.

"Trust me." He said softly, surprising himself for the umpteenth time that day. And before he knew what he was saying, he was uttering, "I can help with this."

They stared at each other, and he could see her fine jaw tightening with clear stubbornness.

"You can't possibly be getting anything out of helping for free." Cagalli said. She shook her head. "I'm not sure what the structure of your firm is, but I'm sure you have a partner who'd mind you taking a case that you're not getting paid for."

His words again, were moving faster than he could keep up. "This is a favor to Kira—this is a personal undertaking that doesn't need my partner's approval."

Inwardly, he prayed that Dearka never found out about this.

But then she burst out laughing suddenly, and he stared at her. Her laughter made it clear that she was highly amused and relaxed at this point, and what a difference it made! The peals of her voice were sounding in the somewhat stagnant air above the river, and he watched the way her eyes crinkled. Somehow, he was transfixed by her voice.

"I still maintain that solicitors are better off being hired by the suckers." Cagalli added finally, bursting the bubble that had nearly swelled for him. "But maybe you're convincing enough to make me one. I'll take your offer, Mr. Reid, but—," She looked at him squarely. "I'll pay."

"What makes you so against us solicitors?" Athrun demanded, more curious than privately offended. Even on that morning of their first meeting, Athrun realized, he'd been more taken with how defiantly a complete stranger had looked at him, and that had blotted out the insults he might have taken. "Isn't that a bit unfair to assume everyone is a crook or incompetent until you find one that isn't?"

Now, Cagalli laughed humorlessly, looking at him. "Don't get me started, Mr. Reid. Let's just say that 'innocent until proven guilty' is a less pragmatic approach than 'guilty until proven innocent'."

He wondered what to say, but then she was already continuing. This time, she surprised him even more.

"Say I do engage your firm's services." She looked at him carefully. "Will I be able to settle this fast?"

"Faster than if you were to try to get an action by yourself." He told her. "At very least, the firm can represent you and negotiate with the developers' in-house lawyers to see if the noise can be adjusted." Athrun shook his head. "But my initial offer still stands. I'm doing this to help a friend, and I don't expect payment."

There was a long pause before she spoke.

"Fine then." Cagalli seemed more determined than ever. "I'll believe you. But I should state now that it's also because of Kira that I'm using your firm's services."

"You won't regret this." He said, his voice nearly modulated with his surprise and even enthusiasm. "We'll do our best." He knew he would—with or without Dearka's support. Dearka of course, would not be finding out about this if Athrun could help it.

"I know the chances of solicitors abstaining from wasting their clients' time to extract every cent they can get is nearly non-existent," Cagalli muttered. "But you better not do it more than you have to. I know you will though, so I'm prepared."

"How do you know?" He challenged her.

She laughed. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

"I think it's a matter of prejudice." He said quietly, looking intently at her.

"It's a matter of principle." Cagalli said strongly, glaring back at him.

"Then fight for it." Athrun said boldly, surprising himself. "Fight with everything you've got."

She paused, looking at the person before her. He was the epitome of soberity, Cagalli realized, and it was unlikely that he'd fool around and fluff this up when he was Kira's friend and she could rat on him at any moment.

Besides, Cagalli thought privately, he'd made some convincing points about why taking on a solicitor made sense for her, and the new projects she'd taken on would mean that doing her own case-research was going to take a big chomp out of her. She was no professional there either.

"Fine then." She looked at him a bit reluctantly. "Only because you were so persistent, Mr. Reid. And only because Kira will have your internal organs made into a necklace around his neck if you do anything that displeases me." Her eyes regarded him coolly. "Childhood friends or not."

"He wouldn't do that," Athrun protested. "I helped him get his girl, you know."

"You know Lacus?" Cagalli said, rather surprised. ""Oh, you know Lacus Clyne too?" Then she grinned. "Right. Everyone knows Lacus Clyne."

"No, not because I've seen her on the screens or appealing to people to join her on missions to rebuild places for needy people," Athrun returned her smile, picking up the oars once more and beginning to row. "It's less superficial than that. We dated briefly when we were in college— back in the Plants, anyway."

"Interesting," She noted. That certainly, should not have surprised her though. People like Athrun Reid and Lacus Clyne must have all been in the same social circles back in the Plants. "And you helped them both get together?"

"Well," Athrun explained. "Kira and I actually met again through Lacus. She'd invited him to a concert she was holding, and obviously, I was invited too. So we met again while sitting in the same box during the concert, and he told me he had a crush on her without realizing I was dating and engaged to her. So that's how we er— got in contact again." He looked sheepishly at Cagalli, who'd clapped her hands over her mouth. "There were some other incidents too, but maybe those are better left in the past."

"That is so screwy," Cagalli said, laughing. And then she sobered a bit. "Sorry. I didn't mean it the way it came out."

"No, you're absolutely right." He sighed, looking ruefully at Cagalli. "Kira knew someone even at that time, and some of those incidents involved threats to Lacus while I was dating her."

Cagalli stared. "What?"

He shrugged. "It's all in the past now. Anyway, we broke up after we got bored with each other and we played a game of rock-scissors-paper. She won and she wanted to break up, and I agreed."

"Do you regret that?" Cagalli said soberly.

"Don't be ridiculous." Athrun said simply and with no trace of bitterness whatsoever. "Nobody who was trying to save a relationship would have played a kid's game to decide whether to continue or not. It was just a way of keeping it in good humor and light-hearted. She eventually started dating Kira and we've remained friends."

He decided not to rake up how their relationship had taken a turn for the worse when her father had died. "Anyway, that's all in the past now."

She looked over her shoulder as a dragonfly moved swiftly across the water. At the same time, she stole a glance at the watery reflections that dissipated and then reformed as the boat dragged its path lazily across the water.

And Cagalli wondered why Athrun Reid was such a closed, unfeeling-looking person. Admittedly, he had smiled and looked annoyed at times, of course, but it was always a mild kind of reaction and he didn't seem to ever get riled up, despite her best attempts to blow him off. Even when dealing with Yuuna, he'd been polite and impeccable with his manners, and he'd dealt with the whole situation so efficiently that Cagalli hadn't noticed that it had already blown over.

Overall, she had to acknowledge that he was a persuasive speaker, Cagalli thought doubtfully, precisely because he seemed to be so careful about letting other see what his thoughts were. No wonder he was best friends with her twin, who was equally mild-mannered and had never really flown into a rage before.

"I suppose," Cagalli muttered, "You are my brother's best friend, after all. Only a friend would bother so much with his friend's twin's efforts to sue some mega corporation."

He laughed. "Think of this as an agreement with mutual benefits. You get legal help, I get karmic points."

"I do think of this as that kind of agreement," Cagalli answered him definitively. "That's what this is all about, Mr. Reid."

He looked directly at her.

"Athrun." He said, rowing those rhythmic strokes over the water. There was insistence in his voice, and she shrugged.

"Athrun then."

He didn't seem satisfied. With a persistence that she noticed, he said, "May I call you Cagalli?"

She turned back to him, looking at him unsurely. Then she shrugged again for lack of an option. "Do as you please."

"Cagalli." He said softly, as if testing the name on his lips. She could hear the smile in his voice and she was surprised to hear the sincerity in it.

For some strange reason, she felt a need to look down at her shoes. Had she looked at the water, her reflection would have revealed her slightly hesitant eyes and a small smile that was threatening to become quite visible on her face.


	4. We're all pretty bizarre

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.**

* * *

_"Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else."_

Will Rogers, Illiterate Digest (1924), "Warning to Jokers: lay off the prince"  
US humorist & showman (1879 - 1935)

* * *

**Chapter 4: We're all pretty bizarre, but some are better at hiding it**

* * *

On this Monday morning, Dearka's chin had successfully integrated itself into the wood of his table. This was very strange, considering that Dearka had never let Mondays prevent him from partying the night before and coming in to work a bit high from the weekend. Granted, he seemed as though he was reading some file, but his head was heavy on the table and his eyes were skimming over the surface the way pond scum drifted aimlessly.

"Was the meeting with that client so bad?" At his table, Athrun checked that his partner was not attracting cobwebs. He considered the meeting that Dearka had with a potential client— that had gone on from ten in the morning to about now. Surely that had been a good sign? "The lady that came in—,"

Dearka sighed, still not turning around to face Athrun. No matter how tiny his exhalation, the exasperation was significant. "Ms. Louissier, or Stellar, as she kept referring to herself, is definitely not a client that we need. She wanted to sue this random fellow for not rescuing her after she fell from a cliff into the sea."

"What on earth was she doing there?" Athrun was incredulous, having long decided that salt and sand was not his cup of tea. While Athrun was arguably athletic even if not a gym-nut like Dearka, he had never visited the man-made beaches and seas of Heliopolis.

"She was dancing." Dearka had not yet detached his chin from the table, but his voice was clearly derisive. "Apparently, this fellow who watched her drop in there and struggle was an Olympic-standard swimmer. I knew it was a no-go for negligent omission right from the start, and I told her so."

"So she couldn't swim, eh?" Athrun twirled a pen absent-mindedly.

"Yeah," Dearka muttered, "She said she was screaming and struggling in the water the whole time. Inhaled quite a bit."

"But she was at a cliffside." Athrun tried not to laugh at Stellar Louissier's plight. "Dancing." He lobbed the pen aside and gave in to his urge, despite the potential unkindness of his amusement. "It reeks so much of contributory negligence that I don't think that any damages awarded would suffice to even pay her legal fees."

"I know." Dearka planted his palms on the table with his elbows sticking into the air. With what seemed like a gargantuan effort, he pushed himself to sit upright. Massaging his neck, he yawned, swiveling in his chair to face Athrun. "But no matter how I tried to explain it, she didn't get it."

"What doesn't she get?" Athrun asked, frankly bewildered. "It's quite obvious that the fellow could possibly burn in hell for not helping some poor girl who speaks and presumably screamed in third person, but that he can't be sued."

"That's right." Dearka sighed, flipping through the file now. "That won't happen; not even in a place like Heliopolis where you might sue for anything these days." He settled on a page. "Like that private nuisance case you almost ended up taking on."

Athrun turned back to his own table, feeling extremely guilty. When Dearka had come in to work today, Athrun had smoothly reached to a drawer, dumped in some thick ring files. And before Dearka had even sat down or noticed anything, Athrun had locked the entire drawer. The steadiness that he had accomplished all of this with had stunned and horrified Athrun, even as he congratulated himself on making it on time.

Thankfully, Dearka hadn't and wasn't looking at him. Hoping to distract himself and Dearka, he asked, "So what finally got her out of your hair?"

"I think the clincher was when I told her that there isn't a legal duty even for Superman to save the world." Dearka's smile, or perhaps smirk, was in his voice.

Athrun grinned lopsidedly. "It sure explains why heroes are so rare. Having said that, I suspect you scarred the poor girl even more. You're supposed to be patient with clients, Dearka. You ripped her to shreds, didn't you?"

"I was being patient!" Dearka looked up and growled, defending himself with the added emphasis of his fist on his piled table. "But she didn't get it even after I explained it for the third time! I am being patient!"

"I have a healthy dose of skepticism even as you state your claims." Athrun began gathering his things, preparing to head a few streets down to serve some documents and then to get lunch. He laughed again, thinking about how unlucky Stellar Louissier was to get someone as unabashedly unsympathetic as Dearka.

"Heck, she spoke in third-person throughout! Speaking in third-person is the first sign of madness." Dearka grumbled. "Trying to sue a complete stranger for his omission to jump in the water is the second." He shook his head and roughly ran his fingers through his would-be carefully tousled hair—a sure sign that he was having a bad day.

He noticed Athrun staring, caught himself mussing his own hair, and then looked unhappily at his offending hand. Now, Dearka confessed. "Yeah, maybe I'm being such a grumpy bear because my weekend didn't go so hot. I suppose you could say it was bullcrap, actually; I've even lost my appetite for lunch." He slumped back onto the table, looking depressed.

Athrun got up with his things, weaving his way over to Dearka's table. Although the morning meeting had perhaps been taxing, Dearka was usually the sort who never cared much about anything enough to get sullen like this. He peered at Dearka.

"Weren't you gallivanting out there with some girl?" Athrun asked curiously, setting down his mug dangerously close to where Dearka's nose was.

Dearka continued doing his best imitation of a table cloth, slumping his weight down onto the table. "Like I said, it was bull. Over and out now." He raised only his eyes to Athrun, since he seemed to lack the energy to raise his head at all. His chin was smushed against the table, and he sighed pathetically. "Did yours go better?"

"Well, it wasn't all fun and carousels, but it wasn't bullcrap." Athrun took a step away from Dearka's desk, smiling. "Accomplished some things."

As far as Athrun was concerned, getting Cagalli Yula to accept his help had been the same as building a pagoda in two days. Granted, he'd spent his Sunday digging up case after case and looking at the statutory provisions, but that had been rather interesting too.

"Referring to Dullindal's case?"

"Amongst other things." Athrun nodded, fighting the stab of guilt even as Dearka's innocuous question lingered in the air.

Even while working on Dullindal's case this morning, he had been thinking of so many other things. For one, he had been plagued with thoughts of the brief conversation that he'd had with Cagalli on the phone yesterday.

Although he would have preferred otherwise, Athrun hadn't gotten much of a word with Cagalli after the boat ride, seeing that the concert had started and they had watched as part of a proper audience in complete silence. On that Saturday evening, she'd been introduced to Lacus when they'd had a bit of time to mingle and talk, and from what Athrun could see, the two had hit it off. Athrun hadn't been able to stay around in that circle for long, seeing as he'd been whisked off by some other friends who'd spotted him.

By the time he'd managed to get back to Kira, Cagalli had already left, and Athrun had been surprised to finding himself rather irritated about it. It was becoming apparent that she was the sort of person who mysteriously appeared and disappeared. Of course, Kira had offered consolation as she'd left word with him that she would contact Athrun soon.

Kira had been just as amazed as Athrun. "Did she fall and hit her head during the boat ride?"

Athrun wasn't too sure himself. In the larger scheme of things, Athrun wasn't even sure of himself. He'd never felt this distracted or conflicted before, but working on Cagalli Yula's case over the weekend hadn't him feel particularly guilty either. Rather, he'd felt almost liberated.

On the other hand, there were more mysteries that he was trying to grapple with. As far as he knew, he had always been the one to end conversations first—professional or not. Besides, men were never the ones hanging by the phone and hoping for it to ring. He'd kept his cell on him constantly even in his house yesterday, although that was arguably a cell's function anyway. At some point, he'd even imagined it to be buzzing when it had been absolutely stationary.

Dearka was studying him, clearly puzzled by how deep in thought Athrun was. "Is the case for Dullindal and the surgeons going well?"

"Yes." Athrun lied through his teeth in more than one respect. "But I'm working on it still. It's not an easy case."

"I'll give you that." Dearka agreed. He ruffled his hair again. "Arguably some bad facts."

"But at least I had a nice weekend." Athrun mused semi-consciously. Cagalli had finally called in the evening to check when she could collect the file that he'd prepared. Instead, he'd convinced her to meet this evening to discuss the extra information that he'd found. It had mostly been his hinting and probing until she'd finally and reluctantly agreed to dinner with him. Also, Cagalli had agreed that he would eventually have to visit her place so he could see its surroundings and experience the alleged noise pollution, although that had taken the better bit of his persuasion and more than five minutes.

"Get this right," Cagalli had told him forcefully before ending the conversation, "I'm going to work towards proving my case too. I don't see why I should place so much trust in you or delegate my own responsibilities just because you're helping me."

He'd protested, but she'd insisted, just as how she'd protested while he'd insisted about meeting to discuss the case. Well, what did it matter anyway?

A smile crept its way onto his face. "Some things went well."

"I thought so." Dearka was looking envious, despite Athrun's vague answer. "Care to spend a few minutes of your lunch break elaborating on your nice weekend?"

Thinking of his Saturday evening and all that he'd managed to accomplish, Athrun continued smiling blankly, a bit distracted even as he headed out of the place. "It's not really anything to talk about."

"Just be honest about it." Dearka watched him bitterly. "You got laid, didn't you?"

* * *

On his way down, Athrun had somehow run into Lunmaria Hawke as he was about to close the lift doors. Truth be told, he'd always tried to avoid getting into lifts with people that he'd feel compelled to talk to— lift conversations were particularly awkward ones, and Athrun had always had bad experiences with those. This time though, he hadn't been fast enough to close the doors and pretend that he hadn't noticed her at all.

Besides, she was yelling across the building lobby. She must have seen him leaving for lunch.

"Athrun! Athrun! Hold it please!"

He'd seen her in the morning when he'd dropped a note asking her to replenish some stationery and to check some documents he'd finished over the weekend. Now, she scooted into the lift, impeccably put-together with her mini-skirt, fresh-faced and obviously well-rested over the weekend. He wondered how long all of that would last when she started working properly.

"Thanks, Athrun!" She chirped, giving him a little salute. He smiled back indulgently at her. Generally, Dearka had insisted that they all get along on first-name basis for office-camaraderie, and she'd applied Dearka's instructions to Athrun as well. Personally, Athrun didn't really care what she called him so long as she did her work well and finished it on time.

As a semi-permanent staff of this firm, Lunamaria had very recently graduated from school and hadn't passed the bar yet. Meanwhile, she was working here to get a bit-of-work experience, and the partners had hired her and Vino to do the usual photostatting, note-taking, filing, making coffee, managing schedules, editing memorandums, updating files, helping with research, calling for taxis, and all the tiny, irritating things like that.

Normally, he would have been perfectly content to ride up and down the twenty-eighth floors in solitary silence, but she didn't seem satisfied with that.

"So," She said cheerfully, "How was your weekend?"

"Well…" Why was it that everybody cared, and why did Athrun himself care so much as well? He nearly split his mouth trying not to smile while fighting that irrepressible grin at the same time. Evening would come soon, and he'd be out of this office and headed to Marle's for dinner. "My weekend went fine."

As far as honesty was concerned, it had been brilliant. Now, Lunamaria was looking expectantly at him. Out of politeness, he asked, "And how did yours go?"

But Lunamaria mistook her employer's courtesy as actual interest. "Oh it was fantastic!" She began yammering on about a movie that she'd watched and some dinner that someone had treated her to as this posh and supposedly super seafood place. At some point, she glanced at him, laughing once in a reassuring way that instead, really disturbed him. "Oh, but he and I are not really going out."

"Oh." He said mildly, not quite listening. If Athrun's state of mind had to be defined, it was definitely on screensaver mode. True to form, he nodded as if he was listening. "Is that so?"

"Oh, Athrun," She chuckled, her eyes sparkling, "How many times would you like me to say it?" She looked at him eagerly. "Like I said, it's not like we're going out." She began talking about something else immediately, as if that would pique his interest more.

He looked at her, wondering if it was illegal to be so energetic on Mondays. Indeed, Lunamaria Hawke, the twenty-four year old secretary-cum-clerk who probably never had a boyfriend that lasted more than three weeks, was very, very spunky.

Even now, Athrun wondered if she had actually managed to talk the hind leg off a donkey. She had probably sprung out of bed, bushy-tailed and bright-eyed, put on her make-up and a nice dress, and heard birds singing outside her window throughout the whole process. While Lunamaria was about his age if slightly younger, she was definitely more energetic and bubbly than Athrun had ever been at five. It wasn't that he disliked how talkative or outgoing she was—it rather amused him. It was just that he never knew what to say to her, despite being just a few years her senior – when he'd been about to graduate, she'd just entered law school back in the Plants.

"So," She said in lieu of his silence and polite smile. "How is Miss Clyne?"

"She's fine." He answered without giving much thought to it. His mind was preoccupied with many other things, and Lacus Clyne wasn't quite the focus. Undoubtedly, Athrun still had her to thank for that invitation on Saturday, but the Saturday evening itself had preoccupied his mind for the rest of the weekend.

"Hmm." Lunamaria tapped her fingernails against some files that she was holding. Clearly, she thought that his silence and vague distractedness was strange, since she didn't realize that he was deep in thought about other things. "That didn't sound very enthusiastic. I thought you'd be more emotive about Lacus Clyne."

He raised a brow, vaguely amused. "Emotive?"

"She's your fiancée!" Luna laughed again at her employer. "I should think so!"

Now, Athrun decided to clarify the situation, although it would take the better part of his discretion and careful wording. For one, he wasn't sure what was happening between Kira and Lacus, since they definitely weren't seeing each other in public. But more importantly, he didn't want Luna to think that Lacus was some kind of tart if Lacus decided to be seen with another person in public. "Er—maybe I should say this. Actually, we're in a cooling-off period now." He shrugged. "One of those things."

"Really?" Her eyes widened. Even that bit of would-be somber news seemed to make her perk up. He stared at her.

All too late, Athrun remembered what Dearka had cautioned.

The problem was that a month after she'd been employed, Dearka had found a picture of Athrun sitting at his desk and working. It had been stuck between some file that Lunamaria had been handling. While nobody had said anything about it, Lunamaria had realized this later and tried to claim the photograph back from Dearka. She'd explained how it had just been some test-shot of a camera that she was playing around with. Of course, when Dearka had informed Athrun of this much later, he'd also mentioned how red-faced and flustered Luna had been.

Dearka had been rather succinct about the explanations for Lunamaria's strange behavior. "Bloody hell, Athrun, she's got a massive crush on you. That photograph's proof of it!"

While Athrun had tried to laugh it off, he'd grown still slightly wary of Lunamaria. It wasn't that she was unattractive or that it was unflattering to have her hanging around like a voyeur. She was definitely pretty in a sporty sort of way, and she was confident, quite competent, and rather fun to be around with. In his mind however, he just wasn't interested in anything except his career, and Luna was better off as part of the office background. She was just too energetic and too cheerful for her own good.

The lift stopped on the twentieth floor. Someone got in, and Athrun was glad, thinking that he'd have some peace and quiet while he planned how to build up and present his findings to Cagalli.

But Lunamaria did not seem to be deterred. She chattered on, mentioning even her sister or something or the other to that extent, all the way until the sixteenth floor when the person got out. By the tenth, Athrun had found himself feeling slightly uncomfortable.

The lift was going down way too slowly, in his opinion. Athrun was rather eager to be left alone so he could turn the brief conversation that he'd had with Cagalli Yula over in his mind and in far more peace. He was planning to walk three streets to drop documents with the Heliopolis office that did the serving of summons and things like that, and it would give him ample time to think of the evening approaching. He hoped that Lunamaria wasn't planning on tagging along.

"Do you want to get lunch together?" Her smile was very bright. Athrun could almost see red flags waving.

"Fifth floor."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing." He hadn't realized that he'd been mumbling to himself.

"We could try that new café that Dearka was talking about." Luna looked hopeful. "You're going to serve some documents right? The café is kinda near—,"

Athrun pretended to consider this. The lift was approaching the ground floor now. "Er— sorry, I've got a meeting with someone at—," He paused, thinking quickly. "The precinct police headquarters." He tried not to look like he was lying too obviously. "It's in a completely different direction from the café you're mentioning. You should go with Vino and Dearka—they probably haven't left for lunch just yet."

She seemed to deflate. In any case, her smile dampened quite visibly. "Oh, I see…"

"Sorry," He said apologetically, not feeling very sorry at all.

"Nah," Luna told him. "Some other time."

"Sure." He said, making sure he sounded non-committal.

By the time they got to the ground floor, Athrun was quite glad that the lift-ride was over.

* * *

And so it was that Athrun paid a visit to an old friend after depositing the documents, all in a bid to avoid Lunamaria.

It had become a kind of blessing, particularly because Athrun had wondered about certain things over the weekend with few answers that he could find. Come to think of it, the precinct police headquarters was the best way to start.

Over a lunch that was a meal in the loosest sense of the word, Athrun eased the information that he'd wanted out from Miguel Aiman.

Blonde, trim, ambitious and confident to the point of coming off as cocky, Miguel was equally admired and hated within the Heliopolis crime control division. Strictly speaking, Miguel wasn't a prosecutor as much as a policeman, but the higher-ups in the police force always ended up doing the prosecuting when the crimes were the minor, almost negligible ones.

The precinct's police headquarters had a canteen that reminded Athrun of a boot camp. Men and women seemed incredibly sober and drab in this place, and the spinning overhead fans made the whole atmosphere rather dingy. Perhaps it was part of a scheme to make the workers here have short lunch breaks, because nobody came here or stayed long if they hadn't already left for greener pastures.

All in all, Miguel seemed rather used to the entire backdrop and had refused Athrun's offer to head elsewhere for lunch. Athrun's private guess was that Miguel was a sadist and liked to make people suffer the way Miguel did where work-lunch options were concerned.

"So," The district police chief said calmly when they'd settled down with their trays, "It's rare of you to have time for lunch—let alone with your old buddy."

"It's only a few streets down from my office—I walked here." Athrun pointed out. This was true. "Besides, lunch here, as you said when I offered to buy you a meal, is dirt cheap.

"Tastes like dirt too." Miguel said cheerfully. "If distance and price were the only considerations, you'd be used to lunches like these. So how'd you get the time to see your old buddy anyway?"

"If you must have the truth, my client cancelled our lunch meeting over the weekend." Dullindal was busy over some concert planning that he was still engaged with, and Athrun had had to reschedule the second effort at settlement with Mia Campbell.

"It comes to a point where you're married to your work and your client's your bloody girlfriend." Miguel leaned back, surveying Athrun lazily.

Truthfully, Miguel was very good-looking with his sharp features and blonde hair. In his uniform, he gave force to the common notion that girls went wild over men in uniforms. "And in the light of the obvious, I'm your second choice, eh?"

"Let's just say that I had a craving for overly-cooked pasta." Athrun said drolly, twirling a few strands with a plastic fork. "How's work coming along?"

"Oh, the same old stuff." Miguel took a swig of his drink, tapping his fingers against the can. "A few cases now and then but it's usually quite minor." He waved at some passing colleagues and refocused on Athrun. "Nothing much for me to prosecute in this district except the old geezers who don't pay their parking fines."

Heliopolis reputedly had one of the lowest crime rates in the galactic system, but that was not to say that daylight robberies didn't occur. Athrun could give a first-hand account of that, even if he couldn't say that he had nabbed the right person.

"That's good to know." Athrun told Miguel. He stirred his bowl of what was supposed to be minestrone soup. "Speaking of car fines, Miguel, I need to ask you about something."

"Ah, we get to the real purpose of the visit now." Miguel checked his watch. "That took all of three minutes of lunch to get you started."

"Guilty as charged." Athrun grinned, drank some of the soup and stopped smiling immediately. He reached for his glass and settled for the plain water instead. Surely, they couldn't poison plain water.

"Same policy of confidentiality here, of course. As the chief, I can only tell you what's already floating out there on some obscure gossip magazine—somewhere." Miguel was calmly drinking his soup, clearly used to and perhaps even accepting of the canteen's standards. "And come to think of it," He raised a brow. "Doesn't Elsman & Reid shun criminal cases?"

"Of course." Athrun responded. "Since we started making profits, we stopped dealing with criminal defense. I'm quoting Dearka on this- these days, we don't do much pro bono."

"Figures," Miguel snorted. "Now you deal with corporate cases, which have the real criminals." He poked at his food absent-mindedly. "So ask away and if I can tell you without putting my ass out there for firing, I will."

"Thanks," Athrun said gratefully. "I wanted to ask you about Yuuna Roma Seiran. The tycoon's son—Unato Seiran's his dad. "

"Hmm." Miguel tapped his chin. He frowned a bit. "Why do you need to know anything about Seiran junior again?"

Athrun shrugged. The truth was that Athrun had been curious about what he'd somehow seen without meaning to, and he'd searched for information on the man that Cagalli Yula had seemed so antagonistic towards. He hadn't had to search hard, although the information that he'd gotten was rather general and even superficial. "Nothing in particular, really. I was just reading some magazine—,"

"You mean the Coppernicus Tattler?" Miguel laughed. His eyes widened in mirth. "Come to think of it, weren't you featured in the Heliopolis one? I haven't congratulated you yet!"

Athrun flinched, thinking about the search results he'd drawn up when he'd tried to look for information about one of the invited guests on that Saturday evening. Somehow, when he'd searched for information about Yuuna Roma Seiran, he'd ended up seeing his name in the general search results as well.

"Aha! I know what this is all about now!" Miguel faced him triumphantly. "You're checking out the competition from the different galactic sectors! He was an Eligible Bachelor too!" Miguel was crowing now. "Come to think of it, he made it to the final list of Most Eligible Bachelors across all Galactic sectors but you didn't! Jealous, Athrun?"

"I'm not!" Athrun protested vehemently. "And why do you know so much about all this rubbish?"

"Well unlike you, I'm honest about having an interest in all this gossipy stuff. So stop denying it," Miguel laughed. "Just admit that you're envious, and I'll tell you what I know about him."

Athrun took in a deep breath, trying to be patient. "I'm not."

"You are."

"I am not." His protest was almost violent now.

"My lunch break is almost over." Miguel sang.

"Alright, alright, I'm envious." Athrun said flatly and without much humour.

"Of what?" Miguel was laughing. "Be specific, Athrun!"

Athrun gritted his teeth. "I'm envious that he made it to the final selection list in that bloody manhunt and that I didn't. I'm drooling with envy, and I want to dig up his criminal record because I want to prove that those editors were ignorant about his past and therefore gave him a spot in that final list while leaving me out."

"See?" Miguel of course, was still grinning like an irrepressible schoolboy. "It's not so hard to admit it, you know. I'll tell you what I know about him, because you were so open about being a wuss."

"So glad to hear that my increase in blood pressure is justified." Athrun said wryly. He stirred his soup moodily.

Miguel smirked, sighing contentedly. "Well, alright, as you probably know, he was arrested last year. Drink-driving. And it was here in Heliopolis, in this precinct. He could pay the bail, so it wasn't a big problem."

"Then why the overnight detention?" Athrun had read that somewhere and that had struck him as being odd. There was usually none of this when it concerned drink-driving, unless some accident or injury had been caused. Yuuna Roma Seiran hadn't caused any.

Miguel traced invisible letters on the table top. "Well, between you and me, he was an absolute bastard about the whole arrest." He leaned back, folding his arms. "He kept yelling on and on about how his father would be really pissed to know that we'd handcuffed his only and beloved son." He shrugged. "But we weren't the idiots who offered cold hard cash to the police when asked to pull over."

"So it wasn't just drink driving, it was a bigger offence of trying to bribe the police." Athrun breathed. "Stupid git."

"Rich boys tend to be like that." Miguel concluded. His eyes, however, twinkled. "What's there not to know already? He's some business tycoon's son, right?"

"Unato Seiran." Athrun nodded. "Based in Coppernicus."

"That's right. Seiran senior's a business mogul and the owner of an entire media empire." Miguel looked at Athrun. "The last I recall of Seiran junior's rants last year, he was going to take over— he has taken over, actually. Now Seiran junior's the managing director of the group. Last year when we arrested him, he threatened that the police's treatment of him would be all over the news."

"Well, it was hushed up." Athrun pointed out. "Barely much information on the overnight detention's justification, actually. I didn't dig out anything much except his one-time drink-driving experience."

Miguel rolled his eyes, looking a bit disgruntled. "You have your lot to blame for that, Mr. Lawyer. He wasn't actually convicted for bribery of the police. His defense counsel got him off the hook, arguing that he was already drunk at that time and that he didn't know what he was saying was attempted bribery of the police."

"Ah." Athrun understood what had happened immediately.

"We only got the lizard's tail." Miguel sighed. "I prosecuted him successfully for drink driving, but when it went to the Heliopolis High Court for the more serious offence, the successful prosecution of drink driving became the strongest case for the defense lawyer. And let's face it—the fine slapped on him for drink-driving was peanuts by his standards."

Athrun looked sympathetically at Miguel. "Tough."

"C'est la vie." Miguel concluded with a wide smile. He looked back at Athrun irreverently. "Now, our lunch breaks end in five minutes, so be a good boy and finish your soup."

Athrun tried to return his friend's grin.

* * *

Evening had not crawled in slower than it could possibly have.

As a quarter to seven passed, Athrun stood in queue with his umbrella, waiting outside the restaurant for her. It struck him that he'd never been so courteous to any other client before as to leave work fifteen minutes earlier and then stand in line for a seat in some posh place.

Why had he gone to so much trouble, he wondered, when she wasn't even paying him for his time or efforts? Politeness was definitely part of the game, no matter how nasty or demanding the client got, but then he was slowly coming to terms with how curious he was about her.

Someone interrupted his thoughts by shoving him forward. "Excuse me," He said with great dignity, moving a step up the line and closer to Marle's.

There was clearly a great demand for the food at Marle's, never mind that the famed place had reputably shitty service from snotty, holier-than-thou waiters and maitre'ds. The girl at the desk had told him quite fearlessly that having a reservation at seven meant coming in only when the big hand was at the seven and the small hand was at the twelve.

The people waiting in line all had reservations, and yet there wasn't space to keep them lining up within the restaurants even. They formed part of a long row spilling out onto the pavement outside.

Here he was, Athrun reflected, hanging around like some abandoned dog in a line of patiently waiting animals, trying not to get wet with the slight drizzle that was threatening to get heavier. There were people at the head of the queue going in, and they all seemed highly glad to be getting shelter from the rain.

When would she get here? He took out his cell, noting that she'd hidden her number to prevent tracing. Personally, Athrun could understand her desire for privacy, but he dealt with it by using one cell for work, another for personal usage, and another as a spare.

The rain had built up into a bit of a shower now, and shuffling slightly, Athrun wondered when the big hand would get to seven and the small hand would get to twelve. But something was hurtling along the road, moving past the line to come and stand by him.

And Cagalli looked at him, clutching her coat over her head like a tarpaulin, and a bit startled, he watched as she halted before him and shook herself like a dog clearing its fur of water. Her hair was shaggy despite how she'd put out her coat as a shelter, and she was wearing male clothes- no doubt about that. Pants and a blazer and the kind of clothes that Athrun expected himself to wear.

Some formally-dressed female diners gave her strange looks as they stood in line with their umbrellas, managing to look dainty and well put together still. But she ignored all of them, focusing on Athrun who stepped nearer and shared his umbrella with her.

They were both getting wet now, although it was a slight improvement from her earlier situation. Standing so close to her, Athrun could detect the scent of oranges and maybe even strawberries on her. As she pushed her wet hair behind her ear, he saw that she was wearing tiny earrings that glinted on her flesh. In the shade of the umbrella, eyes were intensely-gold, probably because of the dim lights that emanated from the restaurant's interior.

"Sorry about this," She said in a rush. Her voice was husky, and he wondered if he would catch her cold.

"It's fine," Athrun told her, marveling at how abrupt their meetings so far had always been. "You're just on time, actually—the reservation's at seven and we'll be called in at any minute now so that you can dry off—,"

"No, I mean that we have to get out of here." She dropped her voice.

He would have reeled back, except that they were in a huddled spot, waiting for their turn to be called in. Granted, he'd only been waiting for ten minutes, but they were scheduled to be called about right now. "What?"

"Please." Her tone was desperate. "I'll explain later."

He looked around at people going in, not understanding, but her urgent tone struck him as being very pleading at the same time. Her hand was on her satchel and she looked pale. She shivered, looking miserable with how soaked she was, and as deftly as he could, Athrun peeled off his jacket while balancing his umbrella with one hand, offering his coat to her.

"You'd better take this first." He told her.

Giving him a wan little smile, she accepted. "Thanks."

"Let's go back to the office instead." Athrun decided, stepping out of the queue and nodding at the grateful couple behind him. "If we're lucky, Vino hasn't left yet, and even if he has, I have a set of spare keys." He looked at her, not sure why the wafting smells from Marle's wasn't tempting her the way it was for him. "Aren't you hungry?"

"No." She shook her head numbly, and as if afraid that he would turn back to the queue, stepped out from under the umbrella and began to stride forward, not caring that she was getting drenched all over again.

"Hey!"

Athrun began hurrying after her, muttering a curse attributed to his bafflement under his breath.

* * *

About an hour later, they were mostly dry.

"So you don't carry umbrellas with you?" He asked amusedly when she came to the pantry in a spare suit that he would normally have reserved for court days.

She coughed her embarrassment. "Lucky day, I guess."

"I'll say." Athrun grinned. "Normally, I wouldn't have that spare suit."

As it was, the central heating had been shut off by the management of the building, and Athrun was warming his hands while cooking. She had come to the pantry, somehow aware that the fire that he'd started over the stove was the only way of finding some warmth here. They looked a sorry state—the both of them. Athrun had rolled up his damp sleeves after he'd dried himself as best as possible with a clean gym towel he'd found from Dearka's desk. Cagalli, being quite soaked in her original clothes, had taken up his offer of wearing his spare suit.

Cagalli moved a bit closer, warming her hands and laughing quietly at how funny it all seemed. "Like we got flushed up and were left stranded."

"Well, we won't last more than a few hours," Athrun smiled back. "Seeing that we've used nearly all our rations." He smiled wavered a little as he considered how the building's security guard had stared beadily at the two of them going in when nearly everyone had left already. "Er—actually, should I drive you back?"

She looked confused for a second, then chuckled. "Oh, come now, I didn't come to this part of town to be driven straight home without a file or dinner. As for you, you can't possibly be that paranoid about what the security guard thinks we're up to!"

Athrun smiled weakly, thinking of the leer that the old geezer had shot him. "Sure."

"Besides," Cagalli said absent-mindedly, "You've made me hungry."

Already, the smell of the instant pasta that Athrun had sneaked from Vino's table was heavy in the air. Vino had left, and in the interest of survival, Athrun had taken those without his permission. Given how hungry Athrun was, it smelt as good as the roasts from the restaurant that they'd left without getting anything from.

She tiptoed a bit nearer now, barefoot. Her shoes had been left somewhere near Athrun's desk, creating a huge wet stain in the carpet, but as Athrun had assured her, he really didn't mind.

The look of fear had gone from her eyes, but he could not forget it. There had definitely been a shadow of it even as she'd entered the building and taken a lift up with him to the office. While that had given way to curiosity, there was no doubt in his mind that she'd definitely had some bad experiences that she was so far keeping mum about.

Now, Cagalli began sniffing inquisitively at the sleeve of the shirt that she was now wearing. "I never thought that I'd be wearing a solicitor's clothes. It feels…" She paused. "Like any other shirt."

He laughed. "Now you know that we're normal humans too."

"Well, I could always argue that it's the clothes that are normal, not the wearers." She retorted, rolling up the too-long sleeves as she had for his pants. She seemed to be swimming in those clothes, no matter how much she tried to adapt their sizes to her rather compact frame. Yet, there was a self-assuredness about her that reminded him of a guerilla fighter, and she definitely looked less bedraggled after having blown dry her hair. It hung loose nearly touching her shoulders, and she wandered around the pantry peering at the various mugs and things in it.

"Should I help?" Cagalli asked hesitantly. Her voice, he realized, was naturally like this, like she'd caught a bit of a cold.

"It's just instant pasta," He told her, his mouth twitching, noting how unsure she'd sounded. If he hadn't guessed wrongly, Athrun sensed that she wasn't too good in the kitchen. "Even I can handle that."

She laughed, coming nearer to him to peer over his shoulder at the boiling pot. "I can see that." He could smell her shampoo again, because the scent of strawberries and other citrus fruits had become stronger after she'd dried her hair. Unaware of his thoughts, Cagalli mumbled, "This smell so nice."

All too soon, they realized their proximity and she ducked away, looking somewhat unnerved.

"This isn't as nice as what Marle's might have had. Why did you settle for plain pasta?" Athrun stirred into the pot, looking back at Cagalli. She didn't answer, although a strange expression came into her face—it was a strained one.

"Well." He gestured to the cooking pasta, sensing her discomfort. "This isn't all that bad either." Idiotically, he scurried towards the pantry's mini-fridge and dug for more things. He popped up, holding two eggs. "Look!" He resumed rifling the fridge, looking for something besides the beer cans that Dearka had stashed. "I know this looks like a mess, but trust me, Vino has a sweet tooth and always puts chocolate in this fridge—,"

She interrupted him, coming to him and putting her hand on his arm. "Athrun—,"

The use of his name and the contact made him jerk upright to face her, his hands still in the air with one egg in each one. Her voice was soft and tentative, and he could see how small her hands were.

It occurred that something was thumping very loudly.

"At Marle's—," Her eyes were skirted away from his as she moved away, as if she'd sensed how uncomfortable she was making him. "I saw someone that I wanted to avoid inside that restaurant." Her laugh was a shaky one. "Figures— it's a posh place." Her eyes caught onto his, and somehow, she had begun stammering. "I didn't know it was that kind of place. I owe you a bit of an explanation, seeing that you were waiting in the rain to get in."

"Hold it." Athrun cut in. He was still holding the eggs stupidly. "Were you avoiding Yuuna Roma Seiran?" He shook his head, completely mortified. A part of it stemmed from his failure to have noticed. "He was there just now?"

And Cagalli bowed her head, her fringe falling into her eyes now. "I—," She stammered in a manner that suggested that she was racking her mind for words, "I guess I need to apologise for making you wait in a place and then decide that we would give up the reservation." She rubbed her arms unsurely. "I—,"

"If you don't mind me asking," Athrun put aside the eggs and said very carefully, "Why are you so afraid of him?"

Cagalli's eyes snapped up and she looked highly affronted and rather upset. "I'm not afraid of him!" She skirted her eyes away, an action that suggested that she was hiding something. "It's just that he's annoying."

"I see." Athrun turned back, trying to swallow his curiosity. "So does he bother you regularly?"

"No," She said uncomfortably. "He's just annoying."

"I see." He said, unable to say some things that were better off unuttered in Cagalli's presence.

Indeed, it was annoying. He was annoyed that she was hiding something like this, even though she had every right to and he had no right or reason to be more of a nosey-parker than he'd already been. He began fetching a bowl and beginning to crack the eggs, flicking his wrist methodically as the cumulative result of many past failed attempts.

She watched as he threw away the shells, and Cagalli definitely sounded upset when she finally spoke again. "I bet you think that I'm bizarre."

He stared at her. She stood before him, scarlet with what was perhaps embarrassment. Bizarre, Athrun considered, was hardly the word for his friend's twin. Granted, her hair was tousled in unruly waves of gold hay and uncombed. He could see that she was shivering from the cold of the office, and his clothes were too large and therefore made her look shabby.

But in that moment, Athrun knew, in the deepest of defiant, denial-prone hearts, that he somehow found her attractive. It made no sense whatsoever. The girls he tended to be around with were either like Lacus or completely chicks that stuck around for a good romp and then vanished after that.

"You, bizarre?" He considered the firm's fridge. It was perpetually filled with Dearka's beer and very little else. There was Vino's huge pin-up poster of all sorts of pop-idols, including Lacus Clyne's image. Even in the approaching winter, Luna had an endless collection of the minutest mini-skirts that Dearka, let alone Athrun, had ever seen. Athrun, for one, routinely visited a café that he never, ever bought anything from. Heck, there was his personal, growing obsession with a case that could possibly be vexatious. Above all, he was here, cooking for a girl that he'd thought to be a boy and enjoying every minute of it.

Looking at her, Athrun told her as much as he could of the truth. "All of us are bizarre, but some of us are better at hiding it."

Over the aglio oglio that he'd actually managed to whip up, his guest interrogated him.

"So when did this firm start?" Cagalli said curiously, sitting cross-legged across him on the pantry floor. The fire on the stove was still going on, since it was colder beyond the pantry. It was amusing that they were spending a dinner like this, but it was satisfying that both of them were getting along arguably fine even in a strange situation like this.

"Since four years ago." He said told her. "Fifty-fifty from my partner and me."

She mused about this, clearly in thought from the way her eyes flitted elsewhere.

Funny you should ask," He said pointedly, "I thought you wanted nothing to do with solicitors?"

Cagalli shrugged, a pink blush forming below her cheeks. Once again, he noticed how easily she tended to show what she was feeling or thinking. "I'm hiring you, so I might as well know a little more. Know thy enemy."

"Know thyself." Athrun pointed out.

"Whatever." She looked a bit miffed that he'd picked out a part of the phrase that was relevant too.

"I charge by the hour you know," Athrun said lightly. "You sure you don't want to weasel legal advice over dinner?"

"Hey!"She protested, before she realized he was joking. Taking it well, she laughed and shook her head, folding her hands under her chin to survey him. "I suppose your firm hit the ground running though." Cagalli considered. "It's pretty well-known, considering that it's a relative newcomer."

Athrun shrugged. "Lots of luck and hard work."

"But the cases Elsman & Reid takes on all so high-profile," Cagalli insisted, behind forward a little, feeling interested despite her reserves.

"Only because they were expected to fail but succeeded." Athrun told her cynically, offering her more aglio oglio from the main bowl. She accepted eagerly, although her expression was a bit confused.

"Why'd you take those on, if you were sure they'd fail?" She paused, feeling suddenly guilty for assuming that he'd be like all the other solicitors. "Or do you believe in justice?"

Athrun stared at her, the bowl in his hands, her eyes staring wide and suddenly trustingly at him. But his lips quirked and he set it down, shaking his head. "Is there anyone who believes in justice these days? Even if there are damages awarded in say a case of mental trauma, how's that going to make up for the unpleasant experiences?" He shrugged, returning to his food. "We took those cases because we didn't have a choice then—we had to make this firm viable. Having said that, everyone needs some ideals—even lawyers. You'd go mad trying to sue or defend without some of those."

She fell silent, looking at how steadily he said this. "That sounds almost contradictory. So how do you know who's right in the end, if you might have been on either side of the claim?"

"That's why there are so many duties imposed on the lawyer." Athrun considered. "But at the end of the day, it's mostly up to the judges to decide what seems more unfair and to avoid it. And even then, it's mostly perception when you're at a crossroads, when both the plaintiff and defendant seem to be equally gray or equally white. But of course, the judges love it when the plaintiff and defendant are both equally in the wrong and don't deserve legal recourse." He smirked, thinking of Dearka's frequent mimics of various judges. "We all get an early lunch."

"So it's all up to the judge." Cagalli did not seem to find the ironic humour that he found, but shook her head. Her voice was a bit quieter and she seemed to be withdrawing. "Maybe that's why—,"

She looked away, and then took in a deep breath and ate a small bite of her food. Unlike Athrun, she'd been intent on the questions rather than the food itself, and now he watched expectantly. Thankfully, a smile spread onto her face, and he nearly laughed aloud in relief.

"You're a good cook, you know?" Cagalli said blissfully, her fork near her lips. "You're talented. How did you get this good?"

He tried to scoff it off but ended up grinning. The pasta steamed, still hot and very fragrant from what he'd whipped up. From the looks of it, Cagalli was rather taken with the recipe Athrun had created from trial-and-error and constant refining of something Dearka had pulled out from the Heliopolis Women's Weekly in the hopes of impressing his then-girlfriend. Of course, Dearka had given up and had paid Athrun to learn the recipe and deliver the food to Dearka's place. Over time, Dearka had given up on the girl too, leaving Athrun with a hard-earned skill. Obviously, Cagalli was gaining from the skill Athrun had picked up.

"It's so good." She mumbled, digging in happily.

"You're giving me too much praise. It's one of the few decent dishes I can manage." Athrun replied wryly. "And we're lucky we found the food that Vino stashed away."

He nearly laughed aloud at the thought of him dining with his new non-paying client—a bit of a contradiction in itself, coupled with the food he'd had to cook for both of them. Everytime Dearka and he had met with a client over a meal, the client was the one paying for it. But now Athrun thought with a grin, he was the one who'd prepared everything.

Meanwhile, Cagalli had taken the file that he'd brought to her, and she flipped through it briefly, eating and reading at the same time. The ease and carefree manner that she did this with made him wonder if she often had to eat her meals while on the move. Her eyes were moving fast, and then she set it down, shaking her head once.

"It's unsatisfactory?" Athrun asked, his heart sinking.

"How could that be? You've done so much ground work already. But tell me honestly." She said, looking straight at him. "You must think that I have a weak case."

"I can't lie about that." Athrun admitted. "This is a city after all. People have to live somewhere, don't they? People have to have commercial space at a certain point. Something's got to give."

"At the risk of sounding like a hippie, "Cagalli said steadily, "Why does it have to be that forest?"

"Well, why not?" He countered. "It's just a forest to the builders and the people who want money from the building. Maybe it's just a piece of land that's not worth looking after or conserving. Wait." He paused. "I think I can try this. If I get information that there are species of animals in there that are economically viable or should be preserved, then I might have a stronger case."

"Don't leave me out!" She said indignantly. "You mean, we!"

"What?"

"You need my help too, don't you?" She demanded, jabbing a fork in the general direction of the to-be-building. "You need me to let you into this place so you can find the relevant information you're going to use as support for your claim!"

"Not really." Athrun said truthfully. He considered the equipment for measuring sound that he could borrow from Kira. There was also a useful contact that came in the form of another friend, Rusty McKenzie, who worked with the Heliopolis urban planning council. "Just being downstairs would be good enough to measure the noise you're making a claim against."

"I want to help too!" Cagalli said violently, her eyes widening earnestly. She had left aside her food now, and she leaned forward, her voice demanding.

Athrun stared at her in surprise. "Help with what?"

"Getting the information that I need to prove my claim!" She said exasperatedly.

"I can take care of that." He assured her, but it had the opposite effect of what he'd intended.

"You see?" Cagalli cried. "This is precisely what I was afraid of by agreeing to hire you solicitors! I want to be involved because this is my place and this is my case! Or at very best, if I hire solicitors, then aren't we a team? Why do I have to be thrown out like I'm some silly client you only find when you need the money for your efforts?"

"I'm not throwing you out." Athrun tried to say. "It's just that I don't really need your help much." He looked around, trying to find support for his claim. "I could manage diner without your help, right?"

"Oho," She crowed viciously, "You want a Nobel Prize for cooking pasta?"

"If there were one for making do with the most random of ingredients, I'd have gotten it already." He told her with a straight face. "And what's this about you suddenly wanting to be involved in the research and case-findings? What's next? You want to be part of the litigation process?"

"At least the fact finding," Cagalli told him stubbornly. "You can just take it that I'm working on a very tight budget and I'm not going to have you solicitors digging around and taking your time to find what you need and charging me by the hours you spend dawdling around. You just tell me what evidence you need, and I'll go get it."

He raised his eyebrows, considering her suggestion. "And this is your idea of a team?"

"Yes." Cagalli said firmly. "It makes sense, it's more efficient this way. I'm not paying you, so the least I could do is to help out. There's no 'I' in team!"

"There's 'm' and 'e'," He said wryly, twirling pasta around his fork. "I'm sure you've heard of this before."

"Stop twisting things," She said impatiently. "You're such a solicitor!"

"Why, thank you." Athrun said pleasantly, grinning at her flushed face. "Always liked to be appreciated for my work. Why do you dislike solicitors by the way?"

He might as well have dropped a bomb on her.

Her face paled suddenly and she looked down. "I don't dislike them— I loathe them."

There was an awkwardness between them that became incredibly apparent.

"Look," Athrun said, trying to cover up for the obviously painful silence that had now fallen over like a great big smothering blanket. "I'm just trying to make sure I do my job. It's not fair if we make you get involved in things clients never want to be involved in and collect the same paycheck. It's not like you're jobless and have nothing better to do! You're obviously a very busy person with a busy job-," He blinked, realizing she had never passed him any card. "-by the way, what do you work as?"

She muttered something, still eating at an incredible pace, as if he would suddenly demand that she not eat his food because he didn't share food with enemies.

"Sorry, didn't quite catch that," Athrun said politely.

"I'm an assistant editor," She muttered again, still shoveling at a magnificent pace. "I work on one of Orb's teams for _Dawn's Carriage_."

He stared for what must have been the eightieth time that day. "The haute couture magazine?"

Lunamaria Hawke often left around glossy after glossy on her table, and Athrun had often caught sight of beautiful people dressed in fabulous clothing on the covers. Cagalli Yula was turning out to be even more diverse and intriguing than he'd given her credit for. Orb was a huge corporate entity that controlled quite a few mega publications. She gave a tiny, unsure nod, like she hadn't been keen to let anyone know that.

"That's the fashion magazine that almost every female and about half the male population subscribed to," He muttered. "That's the magazine that made jersey popular again."

Her head jerked up in astonishment. "How'd you know that?"

"My secretary said so." He trailed off. While Athrun wasn't the authority on fashion, Lunamaria definitely was. For every designer that _Dawn's Carriage_ had spotted and featured, he or she had gone on to become highly sought-after or household names. Even the already established couturiers prostrated themselves to get featured in the magazine. It seemed that the fashion industry treated it like a bible.

For the fashion-skeptical Athrun though, the only thing that mattered to him about Orb was that its worth was reputedly valued in billions. One of its main cash cows was definitely that fashion publication.

His stare must have gotten to Cagalli, for she looked up, appearing highly hesitant.

"Yeah, I don't look like it." She cut to the chase, preventing him from tiptoeing around the general idea of what she'd put out. "I'm not the glamorous Amazon, model-thin kind like so many of the other editors and people who work on that magazine." She shrugged without any trace of a grudge. She looked almost pleased, in fact. "I've been told that loads of times."

He looked at her, biting back what he had almost said in time, muting it to something of less obvious admiration. "I've heard that Orb is filled with slave-drivers. No wonder you're so tied down with work."

Cagalli laughed. "No more than you. What do you plan to do about my case?"

"Well," Athrun considered carefully. "I need facts to support and build arguments that I'll use in court, so I'll probably get my equipment here on another day- with your permission of course," He added hastily, and she nodded, looking rather hesitant. "—and then we'll measure the frequencies and record it for a week or so."

"A week?" Cagalli looked taken aback. "But the scaffolding's nearly done, and the basics could go up within three months!"

"A week will really support our case." He persuaded her. "In the meantime, I'll be doing research on past leading cases of land-related claims to see whether we can find a precedent. In theory, land-related torts tend to be near-strict liability, but it's difficult to say with this one because the authorities are really supportive of it. Imagine yourself in court—you wouldn't want to take the stand without anything to say."

He had said this offhandedly, but she turned pale. There was that little jolt that ran through her, and he saw as she visibly fought back a shudder.

Unsure, Athrun said, "Are you alright?"

She forced a smile painfully on her face, rubbing her arms. "Yes, I can see what you mean. If this is only the third week they are at work and the sound can be proven to be so unacceptable and above the average the guidelines set, then surely an injunction is necessary because the noise can only get worse."

"Right," He commented, still noting how she was sounding forced and even upset. He wondered what to make of it.

"In addition to what you're proposing," Cagalli said readily. "I want to help. I'll do some fact finding about the building myself."

"No!"

The warning bells went off in his head. As far as Cagalli Yula was concerned, she was not going to come near him with a ten-foot pole, let alone let him represent her in court if she found out who Athrun Reid's father was.

She stared at him, obviously taken back at the abruptness of his spluttered protest. "Why not?"

"Because," He paused lamely. "That would be bothering a client."

She raised a brow in definite imitation of him. "You're doing this pro bono. I might as well get involved."

He looked at her, wondering if he should still dissuade her from it. As it was, there was a stubbornness to her general ways, and he was sure she'd turn nasty if he continued to argue with her. For now, he wanted to continue eating his meal in peace and enjoying the way she sometimes spoke to herself, unaware that he was observing her.

It struck Athrun that truthfully, he found her easily flustered and very amusing to tease and barb. She was intelligent, funny and attractive, and beyond the professional stance where all prospective clients were concerned, he knew that he wanted to work with her. Of course, that was all, he quickly assured himself. There was nothing else to it.

So he shrugged and nodded, although he wondered if he would come to regret this. "As you say then. Team."


	5. She was a danger to herself

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please!**

* * *

A/N: Well now, dear readers/reviewers, it's been forever! But I've finally been freed from some awful commitments called exams and I have two-ish months to write, write and write! Thank you for being so faithful so far, and please continue to fuel these projects! Every review will be read, re-read, loved and if possible, answered! Also, check out the poster-fanart that I've done for Private Nuisance. The link is featured on my profile.

Now on to it!

* * *

_"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."_

_- Wolfgang Pauli (1990-1958) on a paper submitted by a physicist colleague_

* * *

**Chapter 5: She was a danger to herself**

* * *

"Please explain the absence of my Mars bars."

Even from where he spied on them behind the bookshelves, Athrun could hear Vino's earnestness and that incorrigible whininess in his voice. Possibly, Athrun mused, Vino was likely to be one of those younger siblings who always had others borrowing his things and forgetting to return them. Certainly, Vino's saucer-wide eyes, unconscious pout, and stiff posture were suggestive of his runt-status back at home and certainly in this office.

"Mars Bars?" Lunamaria sounded like she was gawking, and Athrun decided not to risk looking too closely at the legal clerks for fear of laughing aloud.

While Vino had targeted Lunamaria upon the discovery of his missing Mars Bars, he was unlikely to suspect and throw a fit at his employer. All the same, Athrun did not want to increase the risk of Vino finding out that his precious chocolate had been ceded to a certain non-paying client. Cagalli had liked the chocolate, that was for sure.

"I love Mars bars!" She had declared, eyes wide and shining like a puppy's.

Apparently, working in _Dawn's Carriage_ hadn't stopped Cagalli from indulging in treats like those. She didn't seem to want to cut her healthy, noticeably athletic figure down to the slightly or very underweight sort. Even Athrun who belonged squarely with the fashion-sceptics, was aware that _Dawn'_s employers, employees and even the lowliest coffee girl was well known for dressing to the nines at and outside work. Even the uninformed and generally disinterested like Athrun would have figured out that couture must have come with a price at some point.

But Cagalli had bucked the trend entirely. While they'd dried from the rain and had their dinner, she had displayed a healthy appetite, to say the least. For dessert, she had unflinchingly and blissfully taken up his offer of the chocolate. If she hadn't revealed where she worked, Athrun realized, he would never have expected her to be part of Dawn or even an assistant editor of the glamorous frontier of fashion. He'd heard of and seen Dawn men and girls before—the men tended to be more than metro-sexual or just screaming gay, and the girls were impeccably put together with perfect clothes, hair and nails.

"The public naturally associates glamour with even the _Dawn_ Photostatting-girls," She'd told him dismissively. "Apparently, being impeccably dressed is actually part of the office requirements and policies."

"I see." He'd said, although he'd refrained from remarking that even a lowly coffee-girl, let alone an assistant editor of the relatively minor Lifestyle and Leisure section would have been thrice as glamorous as Cagalli. Of what he'd seen, she didn't favour the high-maintenance dye-jobs or haircuts that he would have expected, and while she had a certain flair to her preference for menswear-inspired clothing, it didn't seem glamourous as one would have expected for an assistant editor of _Dawn_'s Lifestyle and Leisure section.

His incredulity must have shown, for she'd laughed at him, then explained over the chocolate that Orb had at least twenty-five assistant editors working on just _Dawn, _and that the Lifestyle and Leisure section was a relatively minor one compared to others, "like, say, the Accessories section, which is bloody massive for goodness-knows-what-reason!"

With the stash of chocolate bars that Vino had unwittingly provided, Athrun had teased information from Cagalli, keeping her from leaving because she had yet to polish of all the chocolate. While engaged with the treats, she had revealed that nothing precluded the uppers from using the assistant editors from any section to run errands and to source and collect for things. She was the only assistant editor who worked in the Lifestyle section, but some of the bigger sections like Makeup had five assistant editors.

Her job, she'd summarized, was technically to assist the editor with ideas for each issue's section that ranged from holidays and entertainment to pets and avant garde furniture, Cagalli was also an on-call coffee, Photostatting and errand girl for any upper from any division. Of course, she couldn't cry foul, as she'd laughingly told a scandalized Athrun. The assistants to the assistant editors had it even rougher since they were even lower down on the rungs.

It had been so easy to listen to her laugh and banter away with that slightly off-kilter humour of hers. He'd scarcely realized it, but he'd offered her bar after bar, almost like a kid at one of those coin-slot machines; desperate to get some toy with those lousy, sabotaged claws that never held anything for more than three seconds.

Of course, he hadn't had coins, but he'd had Mars Bars. Vino's, anyway.

Why was it, Athrun wondered as he hid behind the shelves, that Cagalli Yula seemed so different and incredibly interesting even to somewhat as generally uninterested as Athrun? If there was one thing that Athrun had agreed on with his old man, it was that women generally spelt trouble. The girls that Athrun had been with though, didn't seem to have prepared Athrun for this one and the kind of problems that she brought along.

And while Athrun himself didn't have a sweet tooth, stalling and delaying her from leaving the office had been a good enough reason for him to offer them both desert at Vino's expense. He'd taken a bite of the Mars Bars and instead of reeling back from the sugar-shock, continued eating; engrossed in listening to her.

Over the instant coffee, tea and the chocolate, she'd stayed a whole hour more before grudgingly allowing him to drive her home. He'd certainly enjoyed the evening in a way that he hadn't expected, what with their soggy clothes and substandard rations. And if the Mars bars had to be sacrificed, he'd thought at that time, then they would be worth it if any blood was shed as a result for the trade.

Frighteningly, that seemed like the case now. The repercussions of having nicked Vino's chocolate was becoming more serious by the minute.

"Someone took my Mars bars." Vino looked at his colleague beadily. Standing where he was, his posture was reminiscent of a soldier about to fire at any given signal. Lunamaria too, was no longer lounging in her office seat, but looking upset and flustered. For now, Athrun hoped that she would continue to look guilty and thus shift the suspicion away from him.

"Look, Vino," Lunamaria said distractedly, shifting files away. "I don't know what you're going on about."

"Mars bars." He said more insistently, as if he was about to break down.

Lunamaria took a deep breath of air that Athrun could hear even from where he was sitting. The exasperation was immensely clear even from this distance. "What the hell are those?"

"Please don't lie anymore." Vino said. From where he was, Athrun could hear his voice increasing in pitch and volume, and it was almost comical to hear how insistently polite Vino was even as he grew more and more upset. Not bad at all, Athrun thought. It was the kind of voice that Athrun would consider using for clients who tried to bargain down his service's hourly costs _after_ Athrun had won their case for them. "You ate my Mars Bars."

Lunamaria was rolling her eyes by now. "Vino, I haven't eaten chocolate since I was ten! For God's sake, unlike you, I have a waistline to maintain! I don't like chocolate! I didn't touch anything in the pantry fridge!"

"So you _do_ know what Mars Bars are." Vino said. He managed to sound accusing, hurt, foreboding and like a kicked puppy all at once. "And you knew where I kept my stash."

"Look, Vino, if you have chocolate, you're obviously going to have to keep it in the fridge! It'd melt otherwise—I mean, where else would a person logically put chocolate? So what if I knew where you put your chocolate? That doesn't mean I ate it!" Lunamaria threw her hands up in the air. "Just because I know where the money is kept in the bank doesn't mean I staged the robbery!"

"You can give all the excuses you want, but I don't—will not— believe in alien abduction." Athrun heard Vino say firmly. "So please explain the absence of my Mars Bars. All six of them. I numbered them. I wanted to eat one a day, so I numbered them." He sounded like a tape-recorder, slightly broken and definitely a bit screwy. He was three seconds away from stamping his foot.

"Oh, so that's what the little tags were for," Athrun muttered. At least one mystery had been solved for the day.

Still, he had yet to understand Cagalli's motivations for suing or why she was living apart from Kira under a different surname and had apparently no other kin. But all in good time for this Friday, he thought, feeling rather pleased with the meeting that he'd arranged. With some luck and about fifty more Mars Bars, she would talk.

"I didn't touch those bloody Mars bars, for crying out loud!" Lunamaria's shriek directed Athrun's thoughts to more pressing issues. "Vino, are you accusing me of stealing your Mars bars?"

"Actually—," Vino's voice paused. "No. I'm not accusing you. I don't have to accuse you. You ate my Mars Bars."

Lunamaria hissed her disapproval. "Like I said, Vino, you have no proof, and why—," She paused, "Why are you pointing your index at me like some kind of third-rate, fictional, dramatic defense attorney?"

"Because I have the proof." Vino said, in the voice of one pronouncing a death sentence. In Vino's mind, Athrun suspected, some epic background music was probably playing on. "Your cheeks are fatter, and therefore, you ate my Mars bars. Only six Mars bars could lead to that irresistible conclusion."

Lunamaria paled—for all the wrong reasons.

"Fatter?" She whimpered. She sounded absolutely terrified, and Athrun could almost sense the sweat on her palms and the horror in her face.

"Fatter." Vino said stoically. He had just finished pronouncing the death sentence, and Lunamaria's shriek of despair swelled high into the air.

Still lurking from behind his mountain of work, Athrun was quite happy to shrink away.

* * *

Over the next few days, Athrun found that he was glad to be thrown deep into Dullindal's case. To be honest, it certainly took Athrun's mind off his extraordinary client's case and mostly, the issue of Cagalli herself. Between doing legal research to build up the case, Athrun found himself up to his neck with work, and there was little time to wonder about the various quirks about Cagalli.

That said, the work for Dullindal felt almost impossible these days. There seemed to be no way of dealing with Dullindal's increasingly high-handed suggestions of forgoing the settlement that Athrun frankly preferred. Just today, Mia Campbell had sent Heine to tell Athrun that she'd suffered so much recently from the stress and trauma of the public limelight that she'd seen a few more psychiatrists and would have to sue for nearly double the amount she'd been intending on.

Over his packed lunch in the office, Athrun had rung up Heine and demanded an explanation.

"This is preposterous!" Athrun sputtered, looking at what Heine's firm had served to him. He'd punched in the numbers to contact Heine immediately, but it seemed that Heine had been waiting for this call anyway. "I thought she was headed for a settlement?"

Heine sounded very apologetic over the phone. "I tried my best, buddy, but she insisted on frying your client."

"But who suggested increasing the amount that she was asking for?" Athrun said incredulously as he looked at the letter that Heine had delivered. "On behalf of her, you wrote 'Aggravated mental distress and trauma', and while I'm not sure that's entirely untrue from looking at her post-operation face, I'm pretty sure the figure's exaggerated. Do you really want me to slam my fists and ask for a discount in court?"

Over the phone, Heine sounded rather exhausted. "No, that wasn't me—you know me, Athrun! That was her lousy idea. It's quite obvious that she's going overboard, no? I think that this is probably an exercise in a personal vendetta, but hey, I'm the guy that Zaft & Zaku's assigned to her case, and if that's what the client wants, that's what I have to just go ahead and try and get. "

"Is this tripled amount revenge for Dullindal's most recent interview?" Athrun pressed. Inwardly, he cursed his client, already knowing the answer to the question that he'd asked.

"More probably than not." Heine sighed. Athrun could almost hear him adjusting his tie in his swanky but probably cramped office. "If I were Mia Campbell, I'd be pissed to hear my former manager insinuating that I gave favors to every male in a ten-meter radius to make it in the entertainment industry. I mean, I've heard enough from insiders to reckon that there's a grain of truth to that, so I advised her not to sue on defamation. But the trade-off was that she wanted to sue for more psychiatric damage. I'm telling you, Athrun, we'll definitely meet in court. I don't think there's any hope of any settlement with this nice cherry in the top."

"You think so?" Athrun said gloomily. Balancing his phone between his shoulder and his cheek, he ran a line down his schedule book. "I was hoping not to have to use the memorandums that I've been strangling myself to get done. Having said that, I'm not going to let Dullindal create even more of a media circus before going to court—I think I'll meet Mia Campbell in person and try and persuade her to settle. One last stab, as it were. Do you think you could arrange a meeting for all of us?"

"I could try," Heine obliged. That was Heine, Athrun thought appreciatively, optimistic, cooperative, and always a gentleman even while he was slicing up his opponent. "I'm sensing that below that bluster, Mia Campbell is rather keen to settle to end all this nastiness. Especially now, since her face is all repaired."

Heine's last comment made Athrun do a double take. "Is that even possible?"

"Oh yes, medical miracles can happen." Heine said calmly. "One just has to pay to make those happen. I suppose if Dullindal had just agreed to settle that amount, she'd have dropped the case. It's just that his recent interview made her lose sight of what she really needed to move on."

"I don't blame her, frankly." Athrun muttered with a touch of bitterness. "Just like Dullindal to want to take this to court even though I've already told him that he has a weaker case than her. He just wants publicity from it—he's gotten pleas from at least thirty prostrating idol-wannabes who don't mind going under the knife and following his every word as long as they get a slice of stardom. "

"He's got that ego." Heine muttered. "It's sizeable."

"Massive." Athrun agreed. "Venue-wise for the last-ditch attempt at settlement, let's not do this at either of our offices—I think it makes our respective clients less willing to come to agreeable terms, actually."

"I buy that." Heine told him affably. "I'll try and convince Mia."

"I'm leaving it to you then." Athrun said tiredly. He rubbed his eyes, checking the things left on his agenda. "And I'll treat you to a dinner if we can get to a settlement."

Of course, Heine perked up audibly. "How's this Friday evening? I know this inexpensive place that has a good lobster bisque."

But Athrun shook his head, tapping his pen against his table. He didn't have to check his schedule book to know, for he had been thinking about the approaching dinner with someone else. The Friday slot was circled in bright red, and for the first time since graduating from pre-school, Athrun had drawn a smiley face. Three, in fact. "I can't do Friday, sorry."

"Aw, why?" Heine wheedled.

Wheeling round and round in his chair, Athrun took in a deep breath, trying not to grin like an idiot. Was this dizziness the result of his chair-swiveling or something else?

"I have a meeting with another client."

* * *

Unbeknownst to her brother's friend, the third Fridays of every month were never good times for Cagalli.

The roads around her were absolutely filled with madmen. They horned and screamed abuses from their rolled-down windows, and Cagalli resisted the urge to flip a particularly obnoxious one the finger. That said, she had none to spare.

"Yes, Nartarle, the scarves have been collected," She said dutifully, trying to sound calm and breezy while she frantically chugged past a harassed-looking mother holding onto her four children. While Cagalli was quite sure that she had no real reason to empathize with parents, she felt like the mother with the four children clinging onto her would have pitied Cagalli, had she understood Cagalli's current predicament.

"And you are on your way?"

Like the busy mother that she'd passed by, Cagalli's arms were heavy with things too, and she was balancing a cell precariously with her cheek and shoulder while jotting down things on a pad. It was quite a feat, particularly since she had to nearly shout into the phone to be heard above the traffic while sounding polite to the caller.

"I'm already in the car." Cagalli lied. She looked frantically around, trying to spot one of company's cars that was ostensibly stuck somewhere in the afternoon jam. "The scarves have been collected. They apologized for the delay too—,"

"Have someone bring the photographs by four-forty five." The chief editor Nartarle Badgiruel said, prompting a silent, mouthed and particularly foul curse from Cagalli. "No later than that."

Thanks to the sudden change in plans and Cagalli's section head Erica Simmons' compulsory visit to Coppernicus, Cagalli was the stand-in-head for Erica and therefore taking instructions directly from the chief editor today. "The photographs must be on my desk by on time this evening. I have the shuttle to catch at five, and I expect that I will take no longer than fifteen minures to decide on the photographs for the centerfold of the issue."

And Cagalli's hope that she could ask Nartarle for half an hour of postponement was immediately dashed. Nor was there any point relaying the message that Cagalli had received about the switch of models and the frantic refitting—Nartarle did not take excuses from anyone in general.

Nartarle however, was definitely not an unreasonable or impolite person. On the contrary, her courteousness made Cagalli feel even more uncomfortable, and the summation of this was a brisk, "That's all, and I will see the photos in the evening. Thank you."

The minute the line was cut, Cagalli cursed and broke into a sprint.

Hurtling past people and ignoring their clucks of irritation, Cagalli was glad for her boots as her soles pounded across the pavement. None of the _Dawn _workers would have ever dared to wear boots without heels, let alone Cagalli's often-favored oxfords or flats. It was unthinkable in a place like the street that the _Dawn's Carriage _office was situated in. Hell, it was unthinkable to dress the way that Cagalli did when the office policy was to embody the Galactic fashion bible. Certainly, Erica Simmons, the head of the Leisure and Lifestyle section was stubborn about having her section's workers keep in line with the office image's policy. But in Cagalli's opinion, Erica was a kindly mother hen when compared to the Chief Editor.

Overall, Cagalli had seen enough to admire and feel pity for Nartarle Badgiruel's consistent obsession with work and churning out impeccable editions. Those glossies had been produced, month after month, year after year, all for about a decade. For all the cruel workaholic jokes and the string of men (and rumours of women) that she ran through without getting successfully attached to any, Nartarle Badgiruel was arguably invaluable to _Dawn_. As far as the media was concerned, she was _Dawn_. She was cool, professional and elegant, but she could be ruthless and brutal where incompetence was involved, and Cagalli certainly did not want to be on the receiving end of the infamous Badgiruel disdain.

Still running, Cagalli moved past the row of glitzy shopfronts, running as quickly as she could through the afternoon crowds with her arms saddled with huge bags and piled boxes. She pushed her way through, trying to feel her feet on the pavement, and barely managed to locate and squeeze into the office-car with Orb's logo waiting for her.

"You'd better step on it, Ahmed." She told the chauffeur assigned to her. He was a little younger than her but he was evidently an expert in getting people to places on time, even in the worst situations.

"Doing that already, Miss Yula." He grinned, tipping his cap slightly, and the car pushed forward.

She sighed admonishingly, trying to catch her breath and fanning herself with her own cap. "Come now, Ahmed, I told you to call me Cagalli!"

His twinkling eyes met hers in the review mirror. "Isn't that a bit informal for an assistant editor?"

"Oh, you ask me that everyday—about the clothes, the way I talk, oh, Ahmed! Clearly, it makes sense to be informal, since we're going through a war together," Cagalli laughed, loosening the ponytail that she had worked her hair into. There was always the mad rush for the next to-be-published issue, and her work involved her running all over town to pick up things while her cell rang constantly. Granted, things moved fast enough when Orb assigned their staff cars and took the costs of transport and things like that, but Cagalli was still up to her neck with work and frigid with tension and stress.

"How late am I?" Cagalli inquired, still panting and mopping her face.

He looked at the car's clock. "Exactly twenty-minutes past three."

"Crapadoodles!" She clutched at her hair and made it aerodynamic for a few seconds. Cagalli could only pray that Nartarle would not reject the results of the shoot if and when it ever got to her table—the issue had been meant to feature Fllay in the centre editorial, after all. As if the planning of this shoot and the unfortunate mix-up of the scarves' colour weren't awful enough, Fllay Alster had thrown a fit and marched off the set for some reason.

Granted, the replacement was an up and coming model, but Meyrin Hawke certainly wouldn't have been called in if she hadn't had similar colouring to Fllay in the first place. For now though, nobody had time to worry about such things. The shoot had to go on.

"Don't worry," Ahmed was saying comfortingly. He was driving one-handed, his other hand busy at the horn. There was someone who'd cut into their lane and he was busy trying to cut back. "I'll get you there in record time." He flicked his eyes over her reflection, however. "But are you sure that those boots won't get you an earful from Erica Simmons though?"

"Oh," Cagalli grinned. "Nah. She and quite a few section heads are busy in Coppernicus for sneak previews of next month's trench coat-revival. Nobody to force me into heels today—at least not until I have to pop in to Nartarle's office." She lifted a spare pare of three-inch booties that Ahmed had graciously stored in the car for her. "In the meantime, I'm more concerned with getting the scarves to the shoot."

"Well, we'll be reaching soon," Ahmed told her, cutting into her thoughts as he did for at least three other lanes. She made a mental note to get him a drink after this—he was always having to wait around for hours in limbo and then drive at top speed. And yet, he found enough cheer in him to give her a little wave as she got out and sped off.

He was fantastic, she thought fondly, scurrying towards the Heliopolis aquarium and using her elbow to wave to the driver because her hands were fully occupied. Then she dodged her way through the security lined around the area, noting that the largest aquarium in Heliopolis had been roped off this late afternoon during the lull period for the photo-shoot. That said, Cagalli was already half an hour off-schedule, thanks to traffic and a mix-up at the boutique.

Some teens were hanging around, trying to sneak in but without much avail. She had guessed correctly—they'd heard that Fllay Alster was around, and they probably wanted to get a glimpse of the celebrity model.

"Where's Fllay?" One of the girls whined. "I wanted her autograph!"

Fllay was particularly in the spotlight at this point of time, since she'd returned to modeling some months ago after that hiatus of hers. She'd been in the business since she'd turned fifteen, moving steadily up to the point where she'd been a fixture in the couture scene. With that alabaster skin and vibrant hair, she was pretty, but those grey eyes were singularly arresting features that had propelled her forward. And that figure of hers had earned editors and photographers' stamps of approvals, even if she was on the slightly too-skinny side for Cagalli's own taste and experience with working with enviably thin people all around her.

Looking at the excited teenagers, Cagalli felt almost sorry that they hadn't heard that Fllay had already left the set in a foul mood. She had been scheduled to appear in next month's issue of _Dawn_, but that had clearly changed.

Now, the teenagers watched as Cagalli moved past them, muttering incoherently under her breath, and one girl said curiously, "Oh hey, that kid's trying to sneak in too. I bet they'll stop her before she even gets to see Fllay Alster."

Moving forward, Cagalli grinned ghoulishly.

The Fllay-fans had every reason to think that even those who were relegated the manual labor dressed to the nines. After all, the people who worked in_ Dawn_ were always dressed brilliantly as part of the office policy, but Cagalli wasn't even making much of an effort to fit in today.

To top it off, one of the bouncers hired for this shoot looked at her as she tried to step past the cordons. "Who are you?"

She moved the boxes slightly out of the way to show the lanyard around her neck and the card. "Good enough to clear security?"

The first bouncer peered at it with some difficulty. The font was a bit small. "Assistant editor of the Lifestyle and Leisure section? You mean _you're_ an assistant editor?" He looked at the boxes that she was struggling to hold without her knees buckling together.

"I heard the emphasis." She said pertly, trying to move past him. "But no, I didn't steal the card."

They stared at her in disbelief and she clucked her tongue in irritation, snapping them back to focus.

"Look," Cagalli said tightly and pleadingly, for her knees were nearly buckling. "I can't hold these boxes for much longer. Could you quit staring and let me through?"

They stepped aside, still gaping, and she took off at top speed. Like the bouncers, the exiled teenagers' mouths were open. For sure, it would not be the last time that she elicited such a response from people when she told them that she worked for. Athrun certainly, had proved it.

And despite the terrible rush of the Friday, Cagalli thought of her twin's friend and his stiff, polite ways. Unlike her, Athrun didn't really seem to have a temper, and the look of mild disdain that had flashed across his face when a driver had cut into his lane had been the only indication of his disapproval. Even when she'd laughingly incited him into honking his irritation, he had merely sighed and shook his head, grinning ruefully and remarking that the lunatics were always released onto roads at a particular time of the day.

She would have expected him to blast music from his car, as did the flashy, somewhat crass but dirty-rich people at Orb and _Dawn_ often did. Instead, he had preferred to concentrate on the road, that tiny wrinkle of focus worming its way between his brows. She suspected that he did not cuss, did not swear, and was the epitome of a modern-day monk with all his do-gooder ways.

If anything, she expected him to be a formidable speaker in court—calm, cool, and impossible to ruffle. But as a person, she wasn't quite sure what else to expect from him.

Somehow, Cagalli knew that she was looking forward to the dinner with him.

* * *

Most solicitors would have spent the hour before a court-appearance sweating shiny bullets and reviewing their arguments. The majority would have slogged over their notes or practiced in front of a mirror, or got down on their knees and begged whoever who was listening to help them smoke their way out of any difficult questions that the judge asked. Nearly all would have sent for coffee, and the minority would have taken some form of alcohol or supplements.

Dearka Elsman however, was preening.

With his slim, ivory-handled comb, he carefully shifted his sideburns in a way that made his face look even more chiseled. It never failed to give Athrun an unimaginable amount of amusement and on some days, panic, to see Dearka 'get ready' for court.

"So?" Dearka said, whirling around from the glass-cabinet that he'd used as a mirror. It always made Athrun wonder how Dearka could pack so much meaning into a single syllable.

"So you're almost ready," Athrun told Dearka, pointing to indicate that Dearka had to adjust his tie. "Assuming that you even have any workable arguments."

"Oh come on," Dearka grinned, leaning his rather firm rear against Athrun's desk until Athrun swatted him off with a file. "This isn't my first court appearance, and I'm not even going there to cross-examine anyone just yet."

"No," Athrun said drily. "That's my job for another more troublesome day."

"True, that." Dearka straightened his tie as Athrun had suggested, looking admittedly very sharp in his suit. "But for today, we're going to go in there and highlight the main points, convince some ugly, spotty assistant master of the rolls that we have a case, and then settle a date for Djibril Hospital's court hearing. And it's on to the weekend, partner. Besides, it's not my job to make the arguments when we're not the ones suing. It'll be a breeze—I'll make sure of that."

"I trust that you will." Athrun nodded, arranging things into a file and snapping it shut. They'd come a long way and these things were really quite routine by now. Besides, Dearka and he had come up with a rather strong case for defending the surgeons of Djibril Hospital, and there were other things to worry about beyond that. He cast a grim look back at the file he'd compiled regarding Dullindal's case. "Now, I'll just sit by you and look threateningly at the bunch who are representing Mia Campbell." He pointed at the casebooks that had littered his desk since lunch time. "I have plenty of reason to."

"A happy problem, dear Athrun. It's better to lose sleep over a case that pays the rent." Dearka chuckled. "I appreciate how the words 'pro bono' has ceased to hold any meaning for us, yes?"

"Of course." Athrun dropped Dearka's gaze and shuffled his things once more, making a non-committal grunt that was a tad inaudible and highly uncharacteristic. Thankfully, there were other things to distract Dearka for the present.

"Unlike you, I won't be coming back to the office after that." Dearka said cheerfully, lifting up his briefcase and preparing to sail forth. "I have a dinner date and I'm going off right after that. You?"

"Oh, I don't." Athrun said quickly. He was still shuffling things around and rearranging his desk all over again.

Dearka clucked his tongue, waiting for Athrun to prepare the files and various things that they would need in an hour's time. "You know, partner, you should really go out with girls more. They're good for de-stressing, since you're now single and all that." He folded his arms, studying Athrun in a slightly disturbing fashion. "You need to have some uh—leisure in your life."

"I beg to differ." Athrun said dismissively, knowing _exactly_ what Dearka was referring to. "I have far too much on my plate and an office to watch out for." He got up, sweeping things into his briefcase too. "And there are those pesky people we hire who spend far too much time gossiping instead of doing their work."

"Hmm, well, I'd watch out for Vino in particular."

"Vino?" Athrun turned back with surprise on his face, paused in mid-sweep of some papers. "What's wrong with him now?"

"Dunno, since I can't quite put my finger on it. But he's kinda strange—he kept staring at me this whole morning with a suspicious look on his face." Dearka shrugged. He took a step nearer, scrutinizing Athrun. "I don't know why, but it's like I feel that everybody is hiding something from me."

"Do you?" Athrun said, suddenly nervous. He took a step back, accidentally bumping himself against the edge of his table. Suddenly, getting to court seemed less stressful than tiptoeing around the secret that Athrun was keeping from everybody in his office. "Uh, how so?"

As Dearka took a half-step forward, staring at Athrun, Athrun tried not to back away too much. He held his chin up, quite aware that looking away tended to suggest that one was lying, but he felt his palms moistening in any case.

"My goldfish won't look at me in the eye, my neighbor refused to wave this morning, it's been raining these few evenings…." Dearka trailed off distractedly, adjusting his tie uneasily once more. He switched his briefcase from one hand to the other. "It's like something ominous is brewing."

"You have a goldfish?" Athurn asked incredulously, trying to avoid the more prominent and pressing questions.

"Some girl gave it to me." Dearka said absent-mindedly, fiddling with his cufflinks now. "He doesn't make any noise, so I don't mind keeping him in his bowl. I got pretty attached to Googley, and he always greets me when I get back to my apartment."

Looking at his friend, Athrun did not want to know how Dearka had determined the goldfish's gender and how it expressed its purported affection for Dearka. Even less worth questioning was how Dearka had given the goldfish a name while forgetting the girl's.

"Look, Dearka," Athrun advised, praying that Dearka would not see past all of the weirdness in the office. "Goldfishes don't really look at anyone in the eye. Not even Googley. And the thing with your neighbor? If I remember correctly, you slept with her and dumped her, which is why she's giving you the cold shoulder."

"Oh! Yeah." Dearka suddenly recalled events that he had mentioned to Athrun in brief and semi-drunk passing. He grinned idiotically, still managing to look devastating even if Athrun was quite sure that any girl who dated him had absolutely no conception of an insurance policy. "I forgot about that."

Athrun resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Oh and the rain? If you'd bothered taking note of the crazy Heliopolis preference for man-made seasons, you'd know that this is rainy one."

"No, Athrun," Dearka insisted, squaring his shoulders while Athrun moved off to fetch his blazer. "It's not just that. I'm telling you, there's something brewing. Even the office atmosphere's different. There's something that I can sense—I have a fifth sense, you know."

"If you ask me, I think it's just you." Athrun looked guiltily at the corner of his desk, where a few innocuous files were. The corner of one such file hid a certain portion of his calendar, where a red circle and three obscene little smiley faces would have winked to Dearka. "Yes, it's just you."

"It could be just me right?" Dearka mused, watching Athrun put on his blazer and fetch a lightweight umbrella. Still, he didn't seem very convinced and he ran a hand through his hair, forgetting that he had spent fifteen minutes getting it into place. "Maybe, I'm finally feeling nervous about going to court—even though I've never, ever felt particularly jittery about these things."

And Athrun nodded as casually as he could.

This whole thing about half-truths, eavesdropping and downright sneaking about on a Friday was not particularly good for his health or karma, but Athrun had gone on for about a week now.

To hell with it, Athrun decided. Besides, it was too late to disengage from the dinner or for that matter, his growing fascination with Cagalli's case—amongst other things.

"It's just you." He told Dearka, thus lying through his teeth yet again. He tried his best to smile valiantly at his partner, leading them both to the main exit of their office. "I swear, it's just you."

* * *

At the coral-viewing gallery, the team had begun clearing up from the finished shoot. At the back, some colleagues from the set-department were removing the cloth from the water tank, while Mayura and Julie was finishing the edits to the photos. Both assistants looked highly flustered, and Cagalli felt rather sorry for them.

In the distance, some highly-stressed set assistants were drying out a particularly diaphanous piece that Meyrin Hawke had worn for the shoot. The stress of the shoot had definitely gone to their heads, if literally, and Mayura's hair looked as if she had nearly torn it out at some point.

The team, scattered in various corners of the aquarium area, had worked rather hard to produce the photographs, and plenty of them were congratulating themselves. Yet, as things often went, no more than a few of these would be chosen as features, thanks to Nartarle's sometimes impossibly-high standards. If anything, the chief editor was the perfect embodiment of cutting-edge fashion simply because she never treated trends as anything more or less than a series of complicated business-venture matriculations and adornment as a science.

"Busy, much?" Mayura muttered with a sour look directed at some early test-shots of the now-absent Fllay Alster. "Thanks to that prima donna who stomped out before any work got done."

Cagalli sighed, winding up some wires that had been used to suspend the replacement model in the water. "I'm just hoping that Nartarle won't yell when she sees it's a redhead who's not the famed Fllay."

"Sheesh, we are so lucky that the Assistant head of Accessories isn't here today," Julie muttered, adjusting the lighting of some photos very skilfully. "She would have freaked out at Garlien delaying the order of the scarves. And that whole blow-up with Fllay—it was just awful! At least Meyrin Hawke was called in at the last minute and did a really good job." She jabbed a finger over her shoulder, and Cagalli was directed to look.

At the other end of the long line of laptops and temporarily-assembled printers, the replacement model was looking over one of the editing team member's shoulders. She was talking animatedly, pointing this and that flaw embarrassedly and apologizing.

"Aw, what's she apologizing for?" Mayura demanded, looking over for a second before turning back to her work obsessively and airbrushing the selected surfaces. "Those flaws in the photos don't exist—she's a lifesaver, you know!"

The images featured Meyrin Hawke in amazingly well-cut pantsuits and architecturally-inspired dresses. She was a very pretty girl, Cagalli noted, even considering the general standards of the top models that _Dawn_ hired. She was rather youngish-looking with bright, blue eyes and away from the camera, she was sweet, shy and somehow vulnerable.

"Nice girl, that one." Julie told Cagalli, looking at Meyrin Hawke laughing softly with that bright red curtain of hair falling gently over her shoulder. Unlike Fllay Alster, Meyrin seemed to have few airs or flounces, and she had evidently been an absolute joy to work with for all her inexperience and dependence on the creative director's instructions.

"Small mercies." Cagalli muttered, noting that Meyrin's professionalism had translated to the images on Julie's screen. While the photo's sharpness was tweaked carefully, Julie continued to mouth oaths and promises to deface Fllay one of these days. Thankfully, the shoot with Meyrin had been well executed.

"Hey, I heard someone talking about small mercies," The assistant creative director, Miriallia Haww hurried over. Everyone was evidently exhausted, for she was sighing in earnest with her coffee in tow and Kuzzey the photographer for this shoot was rubbing his temples tiredly. "I say halleluiah to each and every one of them."

"Milly," Cagalli reminded her. "Nartarle's leaving soon."

"They will be ready on time, I swear, I swear!" Julie near-howled at the end of the assembly line. Next to her, the other assistants in the touch-up team were frantically scrolling over the finished pictures, getting ready to print those. The raw photographs showed that Meyrin Hawke had a peachy complexion, and suspended in the water in a futuristic, ethereal dress for this particular picture, she looked beautiful with the bluish lighting glazed over the photographs. But the editing usually made those pictures painting and poetry beyond images, and the team's efforts had not come to fruition fully.

"Sorry," Cagalli apologized. "I couldn't ask Nartarle for extra time. She's jetting off."

"Oh, yes, that. I'll pop back to the office and deliver those myself." Miriallia held up a hand and sighed again, swigging down the rest of her coffee and passing it to some very junior assistant who scuttled off. "God knows how much blood we sacrificed for these."

Miriallia was one of the younger creative directors around, but her talent in photography had been discovered soon enough and she had ascended the ranks rather quickly. Nobody, Cagalli thought fondly, would have protested. It took someone like Miriallia to see the potential of ideas and the dynamics of everything from the glamorous centerfolds to even the simplest of in-magazine advertisements.

"Jetting off, eh?" Kuzzey muttered, busy leaning over to check the images on the screen. "Put the contrast at twenty-percent increase. Oh, scratch that. Make it about ten."

He turned back to Miriallia and Cagalli, shaking his head a little. Overall, Kuzzey was a generally nondescript, passive person who far preferred to watch things through the lenses than to make conversation. But now that he spoke, he indicated his frustration quite coherently. "I may just make myself a voodoo doll over the weekend."

"Oh, come on, she can't have been that bad!" Cagalli protested.

"Yeah?" Miriallia took a seat, fanning herself and looking rather annoyed as she supervised the editing of the pictures. "Try re-fitting a model in ten minutes and having to explain the absence of Fllay in these photos to Nartarle."

Her sentiments were clearly shared by the others.

"I swear I'll punch something…" Mayura mumbled again, finishing the editing of the last photograph. Her free hand was curled into a fist. "I swear, it'll be something with pale skin and red hair…"

"Hey, you do know that Fllay's back together with a major shareholder's son, don't you?" Miriallia exchanged a meaningful look with Kuzzey, who had taken to resting in a chair while checking the edited images. From where he had slumped, he looked up with squinty, tired eyes, nodding. "Sai seems to like her a lot, for some indefinable reason."

It was strange, Cagalli reflected silently, looking from Miriallia to Kuzzey. They'd all graduated from the same university in Heliopolis, before Kira had graduated and then migrated to the Plants to work. At that time though, Cagalli hadn't had the slightest inkling that she had a twin brother, and Fllay definitely hadn't noticed someone as mild and even forgettable as Kira Yamato.

Julie raised her brows now, clucking her tongue. "Aren't you a personal friend of Sai Argyle's?"

"Oh, I do my job as a friend, really, I do. I keep hinting to Sai that she's not for him," Miriallia threw her hands up in the air, harrumphing once. "But whaddya know. My one-time lab partner in photo-chemicals has turned cuckoo. Love's not just blind—it's totally irrational. But hey, less of her and more of this model from now on. Every time we need a redhead, I'll recommend the latter. Kuzzey, what do you think about these?" Miriallia asked her colleague now, pointing to all the photographs that were ready. "I think I'll tell the in-charge that we're ready to wrap things up if you're okay with these photographs."

"They're good enough." He said simply, not really looking but reaching out for his refilled coffee. Personally, Cagalli was quite sure that Kuzzey did not care what the photographs looked like anymore—not after all that trouble. "It's not like I'm the final arbiter, anyway."

And he looked up glumly, as if steeling himself for the massive rejection of his work, now that Fllay was not the feature of the editorial.

"If I were," Cagalli said warmly, patting her friends on their backs. "I'd take the whole load of them. I mean—look at these colours and the composition! Celebrity model or not, these are gorgeous."

As a whole, the editorial was brilliant, and various household appliances had been used in the shoot. Looking at the freshly edited and printed photographs, the effect of having a computer, an egg-beater, vintage phones, silvery paperclips and all sorts of other random household things floating around in the aquarium tanks was very intriguing. That said, Cagalli had been in charge of sourcing for the items featured alongside the accessories of the season, and naturally, she found every single shot dear.

Now, Miriallia ran a hand through her honey-brown hair, smiling with relief at Cagalli. The two of them had been fast friends upon meeting, and while they had been in different departments, there were very few days when either did not find a minute or two to drop in and say hi to the other. "Thank goodness you were here to get the scarves on time. I swear, I was about to implode."

"Nice to know that having slammed into some passerby and having him flip me the finger was worth it," Cagalli grinned, beginning to blow dry some photographs to quicken their preparation now. Nearly everyone in _Dawn_ had become accustomed to doing nearly anything regardless of their departments and specific jobs, and like hamsters running in their wheels, they kept at it without really stopping for a break. "I thought he was going to wring my neck for crashing into him."

"Oh, but you keep slamming into people these days," Mayura piped up briefly, reaching over Julie to fetch some photos that had been printed out. She looked carefully at those and then shook her head, hollering over to her colleague at the other end to adjust the saturation levels before looking back at Cagalli. "Wasn't there that fellow who mistook you for a thief?"

"Oh, yes," Cagalli chuckled, thinking about that rather strange encounter. She put down the hairdryer to survey her handiwork, then passed it into the tray where the rest were being collected. "Him."

"Him?" Miriallia said curiously, raising her brows and peering at Cagalli. She signaled to an approaching bouncer, then turned back to her friend. "Is there some man in your life now?"

"No." Cagalli said quickly and a little sharply. She shook her head, coiling the last of the thick wire, thinking about how Athrun had insisted on picking her up. For no particular reason, she coloured a little, and quickly turned away, hoping to change the topic. "I'm too busy for these things."

"Apparently, we all are." Miriallia said, pointing around them. She shrugged indifferently. "Most men are bastards anyway, you know? Better to keep them around for shifting things around and walking the dog. Can't trust them with anything else."

Kuzzey of course, was too passive to say anything about this, preferring instead to nurse the iced tea that had been brought for him. His round face shone with sweat and his gaze flickered lazily from one end of the set to the other. Had Miriallia pressed him for an answer, he would have probably agreed with her anyway.

Around them, the usual set madness was still continuing even when the shoot was over. There was an eeriness to the blue lighting and vast space of the aquarium without its usual visitors, but the noise of people working everywhere offset this. Now that everything was being finished up, things would pipe down too.

And carefully, Cagalli swept up the printed photographs, handing them to Miriallia as the head bouncer approached. He glared suspiciously at Cagalli when he did and she returned his skepticism with a brilliant smile quite fearlessly. All this went unnoticed by Miriallia, who had become flustered with getting everything ready.

"We're about done, and in ten minutes, you can reopen the aquarium. Also, I need to get the car," Miriallia told him, bundling everything into an envelope. "Fast."

"It's already waiting outside," The in-charge agreed. Burly and tall, he towered over all of them and looked distinctly uncomfortable to be standing around such fragile, wired systems. "Uh, and is a Cagalli Yula here? There's some guy who's waiting for her at the parking lot."

"What?" Miriallia whirled around, eyeballing Cagalli and falling upon the uncomfortable silence with great relish. Her rather pleasant, good-natured face broke into an impish grin as she surveyed Cagalli, and she seemed to have forgotten about the photographs in general. "So Cagalli, what's this about being too busy for a Friday night date?"

"I am busy!" Cagalli protested, beginning to pack her things.

"Oho," Miriallia crowed, pretending to measure Cagalli's nose until a laughing Cagalli smacked her hand away. "Two inches longer!"

"What kind of car is it?" Julie said in great fascination, even stopping her work to look at the burly bouncer as he cast a shadow over most of them. The others squealed, going as far as to crowd around the bouncer.

"It was a Lambhorghini." He grunted. For some reason, Cagalli thought bemusedly, he had hung around instead of lumbering off to wherever he was supposed to stand guard, thus providing her colleagues their source of gossip fodder. "I asked the feller why he was hanging around, and he said he was waiting for a Cagalli Yula. You, I expect." He gave her another surly look, staring at the card that she wore around her neck.

Her colleagues broke out into wolf-whistles and catcalls.

"Not bad eh?" Mayura gigged, still not giving it a rest. In fact, she did a little jig as she hopped out of her chair. "Finally, you're getting a date after scaring off all the straight men!"

Silently, Cagalli bristled. Her prayer that nobody would catch sight of the car that Athrun drove had evidently been ignored. Really, it wasn't too ostentatious considering the luxurious company cars that Orb afforded its employees who needed to get around town, but she did not want anybody questioning the identity of the Lamborghini's owner. Frankly, Cagalli was not prepared to answer questions in any case, for it had long occurred to her that she knew little about her twin's friend and preferred to keep it that way.

But it was too late. The others had long ceased their packing up and had begun chuckling and giving her teasing looks too.

"It's not a date." Cagalli flushed deeply again, gathering up her things and throwing it into her bag. As always when she was nervous, she spoke quickly and hurriedly, nearly tripping over her words. "Like I said, I'm too busy for gallivanting about town and meeting people. Just so you know, he's my lawyer and I'm about to sue."

And she watched all their jaws fall open.

"You know," Miriallia said slowly. "Most people just claim that they're only friends."

* * *

An hour later, Cagalli sat facing her twin's-friend-cum-lawyer as two plates of steaming lobster bisque arrived.

"You know," She mused, looking at the food before them. "This is very weird for me."

"How so?" Athrun asked. He looked directly at her, and she noticed that his eyes were a curiously deep green. It wasn't the first time that she'd noted this, but the colour was really quite fascinating especially in this soft lighting.

She took in a deep breath, setting down her utensils. It was just as well that she reminded herself of her own rules. "I usually don't dine with my enemies."

"Oh, are we back to that again?" He said amusedly, studying her still.

"Yes." Cagalli told him bluntly, eyeing him warily.

Athrun hid his smile behind his napkin. Apparently, Cagalli and Dearka shared the ability to pack a great deal of meaning and undertone into single syllables, and the way that she peered at him over their food made him feel rather like bacteria in a petri-dish.

"I assure you," He said evenly, "I don't do slipshod jobs of the cases that I take up." He reached over to his briefcase, patting it slightly. From what he's explained in the car, Cagalli admittedly was impressed with the arguments that he'd put together. But for the lacking evidence, the case would have been quite obviously in their favour.

He took her silence, however, as doubt of his abilities. "In any case, solicitors can be sued for negligence and insurance premium increases aren't my thing." He began to eat once more, not flustered at all but somehow even entertained.

"I know that," Cagalli said hesitantly, not really knowing how to explain her worries to him. Slowly, she picked up her own fork and knife again. "And in the car, you did explain what we're going to do to prove the case. But this is a very good deal you're offering, and I'm not sure that Kira would approve—,"

"If it makes you feel better, we can go Dutch," He said quickly, his eyes crinkling with his smile. Overall, she hadn't expected that slight dimple, let alone the teasing tone that he employed. "And we won't tell Kira what we're doing."

"Not that," She protested, somehow blushing even though he probably hadn't meant much at all. "B-Besides, there's nothing to hide or anything wrong!"

"No, of course there's nothing wrong with us being here and working on this case," Athrun said smoothly. "Better eat up before it gets cold, then we'll discuss what to do."

A little taken aback by how easily he had put her to saying that engaging him as her lawyer was absolutely fine, she stared blankly at Athrun. Too late, she realized how easily he had put her at ease. What was next? She telling him about the building or the forest and all the bits of the past that she had wanted to discard? Or about her father and the way that he had died with all those regrets?

"Over my dead body." She said, not realizing that she was speaking aloud.

"That bad?" He said, a little alarmed, setting down his utensils once more. "I actually thought it was quite good…"

"No, no, that was a random thought!" She exclaimed, smacking her forehead with her hand. "No, no, it's delicious, this lobster—," She sputtered a little more at length, then hung her head tiredly. "Sorry, I'm rambling now."

But he didn't seem offended at all. Rather, he grinned again, then lifted his glass, offering her a silent toast. Sighing a little, she lifted her glass too, clinking it and offering him a weak smile.

The other patrons were more or less formally dressed, and there was none of the banter or loud conversations that Cagalli had just left behind at the aquarium. Instead, the clinks of fine glass punctuated the air and the conversations seemed to be murmured rather than spoken.

Of course, Athrun fit the place like a glove with his sharply-cut suit, never mind that he had removed his jacket. She hardly believed him when he claimed that this was the first time that he had come here, or that he hadn't expected the place to be quite so formal.

In fact, Cagalli had said nothing while observing the way that he had thanked the waiter and gently dismissed him. That courteousness that he had shown her didn't seem forced at all, and she wondered if he had been brought up in a very genteel background. He had opened and held the door for others, pulled out the chair for her, tackled a random stranger whom he had wrongly mistaken for a thief…

And here he was now, inquiring about how her day had gone. She should have given him the standard 'fine' and inquired about his, but somehow, having been storm-drenched, shivering and hungry with him in that barely-heated office of his had put them past certain formalities. Besides, as she had wanted, they were now a team.

"It was crappy." She told him bluntly, watching his eyebrows go dangerously close to his hairline. "I hope yours wasn't."

"Not really, no." He said mildly, allowing himself a smile and a sip of water. He recalled the way that Dearka had managed to make backhanded comments about their opponent's arguments while charming the socks off the assistant registrar—who had coincidentally been very new, a clear greenhorn, and a rather fresh-faced young lady. Dearka had been delighted, but not as much as Athrun, who had noted her inexperience with work and men quite quickly. "My partner tends to make the day—if there's a word for it— entertaining."

"Lucky you." She said enviously, swigging down her drink. "Where I work, the boss is as good as a general."

"I've heard of Nartarle Badgiruel," Athrun offered. He poured her more drink, and she accepted it with a nod. "She's sued enough people to create that sort of reputation as a potential client for defamation-specialist lawyers."

"Oh, you would have heard of her." Cagalli laughed, shaking her head. For sure, the chief editor of _Dawn_ would have survived in the toughest military regiment, if not, thrived. She was stiff and extremely business-like, and that was her professionalism that she applied to everything in life. "That said, she knows what people want in arming themselves for all sorts of scenarios and she knows when they need it. Nartarle knows when to put certain trends out, and when to withhold it, and so we know exactly what we need to feature or write about to make a cohesive issue. Makes you want to be your own boss though, when you see all those deadlines. But no, it's the models that drive people crazy."

"Is that right?" He said curiously. "You know, I met one of the models that_ Dawn_ employs today—she seemed fine."

"Meyrin?" Cagalli questioned. He seemed intrigued by her work, and it was far too easy to continue chattering and talking to someone who seemed as personable as Athrun. As she sat now, looking at him and finding herself smiling and laughing, Cagalli knew that she hadn't expected this. She hadn't meant to open up to this solicitor—hadn't meant to befriend him and find him so easy to joke and talk with.

For a start, she hadn't meant to talk about her work, but that way of his made Cagalli feel like he was perpetually interested in everything she had to say, and unfortunately, she felt rather encouraged to go ahead and talk.

"The one with red hair?"

"Yes—the one coming out of the aquarium around the same time as me."

"That's her then." Athrun confirmed. "She tripped because a whole bunch of teenagers flooded up to her and crowded around her."

Cagalli snorted, pausing the cutting up of her bisque. "Oh, the teenage fans."

"Didn't seem to be waiting around for her though." Athrun mused. He shook his head a little. "They ran off quite quickly and nobody helped her up, which was very strange. I still don't really understand what happened, but she left pretty quickly."

"Those were Fllay Alster fans," Cagalli explained laughingly. "They thought that she would be there modeling today, but a replacement who had similar hair colour was sent in. Fllay threw some hissy fit so we had Meyrin come in. Just as well. Fllay would have scared the fish."

"Yeah?" Athrun grinned playfully, suddenly looking much younger than she had expected. "Wouldn't have been the first thing to get scared, although Kira was infatuated with her for a while."

"He told you?" While Cagalli wasn't quite sure about the circumstances herself, she was quite sure that Fllay had cohabited with her twin for some time. That had been before Kira had decided that they weren't suited for each other and had asked her to leave—to some pretty scary consequences.

"That's not Kira's style at all," Athrun shook his head. "He doesn't kiss and tell. But I was engaged to Lacus at that time, and I wasn't amused to hear that some girl had issued a death threat to her. Some time before that, I represented someone who was suing Fllay's father."

"The Le Creuset case where this man sued a corporation for forbidding him entry into a shopping complex on the basis of him being gay, right?"

"That's right." Athrun nodded, rather pleased that she had heard of it. "The man in charge of the corporation was George Alster. Le Creuset was basically suing on the Galactic international right of equality, so it was an easy case overall. I can't say that George Alster was happy about losing, of course. But basically, I met Lacus and Kira again at some concert that she'd invited both of us to, and shortly after, I heard that Lacus was receiving death threats from Fllay. When I went to talk things through with the girl, I ran into a man coming out of the apartment, and lo and behold, it was Kira again. So it was like a meet-up but a coincidental and rather tense one. Kira informed me that he and Fllay had split shortly after, and that was that."

"I'll bet not." She said amusedly when she could control her laughter. The recollection of Kira's favourite shirt being ripped apart with a knife and some other choice events played in her mind, and Cagalli grinned at Athrun, wondering if hearing about those would scandalise his neat and proper soul. "Sorry. I know that I shouldn't be laughing, but that's one of the strangest things that I've heard of."

"It's fine." He admitted blithely. "It's one of those things."

Cagalli chuckled, looking at Athrun and deciding that she rather enjoyed his company. "What a small world though. Kira never even told me that you were engaged to Lacus before."

"It was hush-hush then, and it fell through anyway." He didn't seem awkward in the least, but continued to rearrange his food on the plate so that the broccoli would go on one side. And Cagalli watched him, trying not to laugh at the surprisingly childish way that he played with his food even while holding his utensils beautifully. "Maybe it was consideration for me that made him take so long to get together with Lacus."

"Really?" Cagalli said interestedly, leaning forward in fascination. "He never tells me anything except stuff about dolphin communication, so this is all quite new."

"Yes, I've heard much about the dolphins too." Athrun said, his lips twitching. "But I doubt that Kira was anything less than smitten upon meeting her. In fact, she was the one who re-introduced me to Kira."

"It's strange though," she noted. "You're still good friends with Kira and Lacus."

"Lacus and I have always been good friends," He remarked. "Our parents did business together, and Kira was my first friend in the school that I transferred to all those years ago."

She bit back the questions at the tip of her tongue. It would not be good to ask, she told herself, not when she had no intention of revealing those things on her part once he asked in return. Still, he was turning out to be quite interesting, and it took quite a bit of willpower not to ask him about things.

"How funny though." She murmured, resting back and looking at him. She had been thinking about what Kira had said about him, and she had wondered if she had judged Athrun for being a solicitor too quickly. "I had no idea."

"It's a small world and somehow we all end up knowing each other." Athrun concluded, mistaking her throwaway comment for something else.

And he carved a bit of his lobster neatly, looking directly at her in a way that made her feel a little uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the earnestness that she hadn't expected, or the hesitation that appeared in his face momentarily as he looked at her. Or perhaps, it was her own awkwardness as she had glanced at his half-smile and listened to the mild, even tone of his voice.

She dropped her gaze from his, carving her own lobster too.

* * *

**Well that's about it for now, folks! Next chapter will probably be more exciting, featuring Athrun in court, getting into sticky settlement talks and of course, working at Cagalli's place! R&R please!**


	6. We're so close to something unknown

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.**

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A/N: Well now, dear readers/reviewers, it's been a long time—about a year or more! Let's hope that I finally get back to writing, but in the meantime, here's a new chapter and the art that I've done for this story, thanks to fanfiction's new image tool! The fullsized version is found here: :/ /image/rw5qjxhvl/ (just remove all the spaces in between the )

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_"Be obscure clearly.__"  
__E. B. White_

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**Chapter 6: We're so close to something unknown**

* * *

On this Tuesday afternoon of the proposed negotiation with Mia Campbell and Heine Westenfluss, Athrun sat gloomily at the bar, flipping through his files and studiously ignoring the bartender that was trying to peer at his face.

It was a dreadfully familiar and awkward situation. If anyone asked him if he was one of the Heliopolis Eligible Bachelors that had been featured, Athrun was quite certain that he would scream and tear his hair out.

For now, he wanted to avoid that scenario.

He studiously checked his watch again. He had done this at least four times within fifteen minutes, and it rather bothered Athrun that he was so indisputably and embarrassingly excited—yes, excited—about ending this negotiation and working on Cagalli's case once more. It surprised him, but for now, he ignored his better judgment.

As Dearka had commented, women weren't even that worth getting enthusiastic over. According to Dearka, women were far too much like flowers; good as decorations and little else. They needed days to get ready, wilted easily, required far too much care and attention and generally cost more than they were worth for the limited number of events when they were on display. Personally, Athrun had always agreed with Dearka's analogy even if Dearka was a pretty lousy gardener—analogy and reality-wise.

Cagalli Yula though, Athrun mused now, would have been mildly insulted to have been thought of as a flower. She probably prided herself on being prickly, what with her informal job requirements and apparent obsession with chilli sauce. In a pretty foolish attempt to gain implicit approval, he had imitated her liberal scattering of chilli flakes over the third course—resulting in tears running down both their cheeks. Hers had been from laughter—his had been more genuine.

As he thought about her and her reluctance in letting him drive her back, he congratulated himself for convincing her to go for another dinner later that week for more in-depth analysis. She hadn't been keen on the decidedly fancy place that he'd suggested and had set the venue at what was probably a crowded, noisy bistro in the end. That said, she could have suggested dinner at Miguel's workplace and he probably would have agreed and tap-danced his way there.

And that was funny, really. The last time that Athrun had thought about or even ventured to dance had been when he had been—in his own words—a little tipsy. In Dearka's, he had been "fucking smashed". Given that Dearka was always keen to remind him about it, Athrun wanted as little involvement as possible with any form of dance.

"Well, hello there." Someone tapped him on the shoulder, interrupting his thoughts.

Perhaps he had been lost in his thoughts, but Athrun hadn't noticed the Galaxy's reputedly most popular Plant-born songstress leaning an elbow next to him on the bar-top and grinning at him.

"Lacus!" He exclaimed, nearly leaping out of his chair to greet her. He managed to swivel around in time to put his arms around her as a response to her quick embrace. She didn't let go until he did, and he took a few seconds more to recover from his initial surprise.

"What are you doing here? I thought you flew back after the charity event and—,"

Gracefully, she began to slide herself into the seat next to his, bringing her face close to Athrun's and pressing her lips against his cheek to greet him again. He had always been aware of how beautiful she was, beyond how well-known she had become in the industry—it didn't surprise him that plenty were looking at her.

"You should have told me you were around, Lacus." He said reproachfully. At the same time, he vaguely wondered why she had chosen to marinate herself in perfume today. "I would have gone to fetch you."

"Oh, I've missed you, babe." She giggled, looking at him through her lashes as she moved away slightly. Her dress was a tad clingy and there was a splash of cleavage that he spied. It was all very different from what he was used to, even if it was admittedly nice enough as far as the tetosterone in Athrun was concerned. Stranger than that was her laugh. It had been— he couldn't wrap his head around it— different.

Besides, Lacus had never, ever, called Athrun 'babe'.

"You're not Lacus." He said, if almost obviously and a bit stupidly.

"So you're that Athrun then?" She laughed that strange laugh again, taking his face between her hands. "I didn't expect Dullindal's lawyer to look like this. I suppose I should have, knowing how he surrounds himself with all those pretty boys."

He wondered what to say, but she wouldn't have allowed for much introduction on her part, given that she was already pecking him on the lips.

Watching someone who had Lacus' face and voice act and speak like this was rather like watching a car accident— horrifyingly fascinating. He had to wait a few seconds before he felt sure that he would not stammer when he spoke.

"Well, I'm glad that you could make it, Miss Campbell." He managed to nod and forced out a smile. The way that she'd dressed her lips in fire-engine red suggested that she cared very little about looking exactly like the actual subject of inspiration. "I'm happy to hear that your recovery was a—," He paused, moving back carefully and avoiding her hands. He racked his mind, searching for the right words. "A—successful one."

He watched as she flipped her hair confidently over a shoulder. For sure, Mia Campbell had done more than fix the botched job in the period that she'd agreed to put the proceedings on hold.

She'd taken Lacus' face entirely.

He moved away a little, rather taken aback. But still, he could smell the perfume on her neck. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was potentially overpowering.

He had no time to wonder how much the operation had cost, however. Mia was staring at him in a way that Athrun had come to recognize over the years. It was an expression of appreciation and appraisal, and now Athrun fought back the urge to shift further away for fear of appearing rude.

Frankly, he wasn't sure why he was so taken aback by someone who'd successfully assumed Lacus' rather appealing, dollish face. Perhaps it was how Lacus had never given him the once-over in the way that this girl was doing. Moreover, this Lacus had tied her hair into a high ponytail, revealing a very glad neck and an amount of skin that was impossible to ignore. Even now, as he called over the waiter, she bent over the table top to select from the drink menu, and Athrun realized that the young bartender was definitely staring at something else other than the drink mixes.

She noticed and gave them both a coquettish grin.

Athrun tried his best to ignore the suggestion in the smile. He focused on the bartender. "Iced tea, please."

"No, that's boring." Mia Campbell cut in, waving her hand to snap the bartender's attention back to her, amongst other things. "Get him a coke and gin—it's almost time for dinner and tea's just for fuddy-duddies." She looked prettily at the bartender. "Oh, and a pink silk stocking for me."

"Are you L-L-Lacus Clyne?" The bartender was gushing now.

She answered immediately and with a rather suggestive, would-be careless wave of her hand near her generous chest. "Well, what do you think?"

The poor bartender's eyes went south, then shot back to her face and his eyes lighted up. "It's really you, Miss Clyne! Oh we're so h-h-h-honoured, I-I," He stuttered. "Welcome!"

She giggled, not saying anything to clarify who she really was. Most people in the bar had noticed her coming in and were whispering by now.

Thoroughly horrified, Athrun looked at the bartender, wondering what to say or whether to clarify the misrepresentation.

But the bartender had scuttled away, clearly intent on getting the drinks for his star-customer as soon as possible and Athrun promptly swore to keep this incident a secret from Lacus even after he was lowered into his grave.

Obviously sensing his discomfort and choosing to ignore it, Mia laughed once, batting her eyes at Athrun and obviously enjoying what she deemed to be their private joke. Athrun found it disconcerting, given that he'd never imagined Lacus's face to appear along with that image. While Athrun had long gotten over his teenage attraction and engagement to his childhood playmate and confidante, he had never failed to register that Lacus' face was a very classic, beautiful one that had inspired a hundred girls to dress and to look like her.

None had gone as far as Mia Campbell, however.

She must have guessed his thoughts, for a small smile played on her lips. Lacus' angelic face looked at him—blue eyes very wide and smile luminous with that strange, flirty expression coloring it.

"Do I disgust you?" She said softly, tracing her own face.

"No." He said automatically. Mostly, he wondered how the surgeons had managed to restructure her face.

"Well now," Mia said sweetly. She looked at him squarely. "I didn't think that you'd start lying so quickly."

He shook his head, looking directly at her. "I'm not lying, Ms. Campbell. Everyone has a right to improve themselves."

But privately, he wondered what she'd done was as good as identity theft. Those were issues he didn't want to really think about unless there was a need to— or paid to, in this case. Ethics were too grey for someone as quietly noncommittal as Athrun. But if he was repulsed by anything, it was what she was doing to Lacus' image.

Mia was watching him, a bit surprised. There was a flitting look of insecurity that he noticed, and suddenly, he felt sorry for her.

"What are you thinking about?" She said, a bit abruptly.

"I'm thinking that you must have gone through so much." Athrun told her quietly. Cosmetic surgery, in his own mind, was just another form of a consumer good or service. Already, the cutting edge of technology was being concentrated on all sorts of cosmetic wants, and Athrun was aware that morals, ethics and all would be insufficient in preventing such services from becoming desirable. Still, the pain of the multiple operations couldn't have been easy to recover from.

He saw her lips trembling as she took a sip of her drink. Despite his desire not to see more than what she wanted to put out, there were so many things about her that seemed to be a public persona rather than her strict personality traits per se.

Perhaps she wasn't so sure about herself now. When Mia spoke, her voice seemed falsely cheery. "So what are you asking on behalf of that scumbag today?"

He considered the option of telling her exactly what Dullindal had asked for and decided to go more with his instincts—and courtesy. "Well, my client is open to discussing the issues with you, except that he couldn't make it today. I was told to use my own discretion."

"And?" She raised her perfect brow, tapping her polished nails on her glass. "Does he want me to retract my statements in those magazines about him?"

"That, amongst other things." Athrun admitted. "But I suppose that Heine will be coming any time now and we'll listen to what he has to say. On my part though, Miss Campbell, I just hope that you can drop the charges against Mr. Dullindal. The surgeons seem to be the ones at fault—not your manager."

"Well now," She chirped, stroking the rim of her glass, "That all depends on whether I'm pleased with the deals that he's offering me."

She shifted closer, actually daring to cuddle up to him.

More curious than anything else, he stared at her, wondering how the surgeons had managed to reconstruct the collapsed nose that he'd seen in the photographs the other time. Beyond that, he wondered why she was suddenly being so friendly. It was befuddling to him.

"Miss Campbell," Athrun said stiffly, trying to move away without being rude and pissing her off, "As I understand it, Mr. Dullindal has tried to reach a settlement with you."

"Call me Mia, and then we'll have something to talk about." She grinned. "I already think of you as Athrun, not some stuffy lawyer."

He bit his impatience back. "Alright then, Mia. Returning to the issue at hand—,"

She shushed him, reaching over to stroke his cheek. He flinched, but he did not draw back, unwilling to let himself be chased out of the bar. Thankfully, there weren't many people at this time of the day, although he was sure that some people were already staring.

"I did come to discuss that and to tell you that I would sue even if it was the last thing that I did. But to be frank," Mia breathed. "I didn't know you were so…" She trailed off meaningfully, her eyes flitting over his face and then settling back on his mouth. "So appealing."

"I came here today," Athrun injected some force into his voice as he tried to move away without getting up from his seat, "To ask you if you would kindly settle your issues out of court. Mr. Dullindal is willing to pay half of your recovery costs and to keep your contract, so long as you retract the statements you made to the Heliopolis Tattler."

She giggled, actually daring to reach to his face and pinch his cheek. "You're so funny."

He reared back, a bit shocked. Cheek-pinching had never occurred to him after he'd reached a certain age and having his client's opponent do that was very startling.

"You're such a gentleman. But you're so—," She searched for the word. "You're so awfully serious. So serious, that it's funny." Athrun wondered what exactly she was going on about. For sure, people had said that about him before, but he didn't know whether to take what she was saying as a compliment now.

A bit flustered, he tried to scoot to another seat, but Mia occupied the one that he'd vacated immediately. She let her fingers wander over his shoulder, doing a tiny tap-dance with her fingertips over his earlobe. "Well, enough of that for now. I want to get to know you, since I hear that you're engaged to Lacus Clyne." She giggled, lowering her voice and lashes. "Maybe that's why nobody's really bothering us."

Athrun wondered what to say, even though he was praying that someone would interrupt this right now. In any case, he didn't see a need to explain anything to this stranger.

Again however, his silence seemed to be acquiescence and she cuddled nearer, openly hugging his arm. He could feel his ears burning, and tried, as tactfully as possible, to take his arm and eyes away from her chest, but she came back to him, pouting.

He tried to speak, even though his voice was becoming gruff with embarrassment. "Ms. Campbell, Mr. Dullindal asked me to request that you—,"

"If you bring him up," Mia said abruptly, dropping her bright, flirty smile for a split-second, "I'll leave and there'll be no hope of a settlement at all."

In his stunned silence, she took the opportunity to sidle even nearer to him.

"Er—maybe we should talk about settlement first, then." He stole glances at the other patrons, who were still looking at them and smiling indulgently.

"No," She batted her eyelashes. "We can't unless Heine's here. I know enough about the legal ethical guidelines and the rules about negotiations being valid only when both sides' lawyers are present."

Somehow looking at the positive side of things, Athrun congratulated himself on managing not to curse.

"Also, I hear that traffic's a killer at this time of the day." Her voice was very breathy. "Just drink up."

"R-Right."

Haplessly, Athrun took a swig of his drink for lack of better things to do while his arm was pinned to her. Undoubtedly, the other patrons were probably itching to reach for their cell's built-in cameras, except that Athrun leveled extremely displeased stares at those who even dared.

Fervently, Athrun prayed that Heine would come soon.

* * *

Her dinner was cooking in the kitchen but as far as Cagalli was concerned, the beef stew was nowhere near burnt and would be even better if it cooked for an hour more. At the corner of her dining table, her beer was getting warm, but it would certainly take someone much fussier than her to actually mind.

The apartment bore testimony to her casualness. The single balcony was walled with glass and a television set that she hadn't used for months was placed adjacent to it. Mostly, Cagalli's guests ended up having to use chairs from the dining table to watch television if there were more than three of them, but that happened very rarely. Since Cagalli lived here alone, the one sofa that she had haggled for at a flea market was more than enough and she had never seen a need to spend on a complete set.

Her place wasn't very big, but it was certainly cosy enough for one or maybe even three people. The kitchen was small and functional and the sofa set was miniature but was sufficient. The walls were cream coloured as they'd originally been, but she'd indulged in gorgeous, glossy posters of vintage and instantly recognizable advertisements that she had collected over time. Mostly, the posters featured more food items than glamorous pictures of models in impeccable poses—arguably, her work dealt with too much of the latter.

When finally she ran out of things to look at, Cagalli folded her hands beneath her chin, unable to find excuses to avoid eye-contact with Kira. Mostly, she ended up mumbling her answer to Kira.

His eyes widened as he made out what his twin had barely enunciated.

"So let me get this right—you had dinner with Athrun?" Kira was grinning from ear to ear.  
"Twice?"

"Twice." Cagalli confirmed uneasily. Although she was sprawled in her favourite wood-stump, mushroom-patterned chair by her dining table and merely taking her weekly video-call from Kira, she felt like she was under a microscope.

Queasily, she massaged her temples, feeling the stress of the week already taking its toll on her. "He—He's been nice."

If it was even possible, Kira's smile grew brighter and he looked even more like a teenager than he normally did. "He's a good person."

"Hey, we're not bosom buddies or anything, alright?" She disclaimed quickly, almost knocking over the beer in her hastiness. "It's just that Athrun's rather—rather—," She paused, searching for the right word even while Kira raised his eyebrows in anticipation. "Professional."

From his end, Kira looked highly pleased. "Exactly. That's what I meant. He's not like so many of the others."

"For now." Cagalli added aggressively, trying to remind herself what solicitors essentially were. Her eyes fell, and she tried not to think about her father or the advice that he had taken. She closed her eyes, blinking and trying to remind herself that work at Orb had ended since six, but the bitterness still rose up her throat.

There were the memories of her father, hazy from his fever and sweating from nervousness and the fear of the rising debts. There was Unato Seiran, his wife and his son, asking her to live with them and inviting her to attend a private school and to let them handle the inheritance. There had been her father's trust in them and their solicitors—there had been the way that he'd placed his life and hers into their hands. There had been those years of her travelling; her mistaken belief that she had a place to return to, a freedom that her father had left to her. Here was the apartment, left for her, once empty and vacated with thin films of dust clothing everything until she had finally began to clean it up, live in it and to make the space her own.

She blinked once, fighting back her tears fiercely. All this time that she was spending with a lawyer was not doing her any good—it inadvertently brought back all the bad things that she'd wanted to forget, including the reason why she was back here in Heliopolis and working for Orb at all.

Suddenly, she was glad that Kira could not see her hands beginning to shake in her lap, and with some effort, she stilled them and looked back to her twin. "Longtime friendship with you or not, I wouldn't trust a lawyer at the end of the day."

"That's alright too." Kira's smile was very gentle. Evidently, he was sitting cross-legged and relaxing on his bed to make this call, but somebody like Kira would have rushed home after work to chat with his twin and thus forgotten to take off his white lab-coat with its fishy scent. "I understand that. But I also understand that you're on a first-name basis with him."

Had she not been facing the screen, it would have been easier for Cagalli to hide the discomfort as she sputtered an inconsequential comeback. That said, she could have simply pulled the plug and watched the images of Kira and the backdrop of his room zip into black and silver. It would have been far easier not to answer any questions and not to think about Athrun or the way she'd felt heat rising in her cheeks when he'd driven her back home, ignored her protests and walked her to the basement's lift. He'd stood closer than she'd expected and she had turned away, trying not to sense his nearness and to register the spicy aftershave and traces of his cologne. He'd waited until she got in before leaving and she had not thanked him for more than sending her home, but she had appreciated his courtesy more than she'd revealed. It wasn't something that she was going to admit to Kira, let alone his friend.

But it was one of those rare occasions, Cagalli supposed, that Kira and she were really free to talk without any form of interruption. Gazing at his beaming, incredibly boyish face, she wondered if there was anybody more suited than Kira to specialize in studying dolphins and their habitats. In the background, the cowfish that he kept in a tank swam busily, its comically-shaped body resembling something from a Cubist painting. Clearly, he liked to take his work home.

"I don't know why I'm telling you anything about all this, frankly." Cagalli said pointedly. "I mean, just because you call and ask how the case is going doesn't mean that I should have to tell you." She peered into the screen attached to her house phone. "You know, you never told me much about you and Lacus!" She grimaced, thinking about what Athrun had explained to her. "Or Fllay, for that matter."

Scratching his head a little, Kira kept his smile. That said, it dimmed a little.

"Go on then." Cagalli demanded. She came closer to the screen in a mock-threatening manner. "And don't you dare say that it's time to go because you have to feed that freaky fish of yours."

Kira sighed a little, adjusting Tori on his other shoulder as it flapped. "It was—messy. I didn't think you'd want to be regaled with the saga. You've got a busy job as it is, and you're always running all over Heliopolis and doing this or that. What was it about working in an aquarium with the photoshoot this time?"

"Hey," Cagalli told him, fiddling with the cord and sighing once. "Just as how I tell you things when you ask, you ought to share stuff with me, Kira. Besides, it's not often that you're around in Heliopolis, so we only get to talk like this with screens and a thousand hundred miles between us."

His eyes softened. "Alright, alright. You tell me about what you're going to do about Genesis Motors, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know about Fllay, Lacus or whatever or whoever."

"Deal!" She whooped, nearly knocking over her beer yet again.

Thankfully, Kira had yet to sense her interest in asking about persons besides Fllay or Lacus. For now, Cagalli decided, she would try not to ask too many questions about a certain advocate.

"So spill." Kira instructed. Behind him, the cowfish poked its strange little lime horns out of the water to test the air currents.

"Well, Athrun's going to get the equipment that we need to measure the noise. Technically, as he explained, there are specialist companies for that sort of thing, but he has a contact that can help him cut costs. So he'll pass me the equipment, and—," She paused. "I'll get the evidence."

"Right." Kira tapped his chin, apparently, thinking hard. "So he's going to come over to that little place of yours?"

Cagalli laughed, remembering how taken aback her twin had been when he'd visited. He'd seen the way that she'd filled her apartment with mismatched, invididual pieces from thrift stores and second-hand markets. Even the dining table's chairs that she'd placed her freshly-bought veggies on were mini wood benches that might have belonged to some kindergarten at some point.

"You know you love my place." She said matter-of-factly. "Every time you come to Heliopolis, you end up bunking here."

"Of course." Kira grinned. "How else would I spend time with you? And besides, I like that pet and style of yours."

"Style, you say." She laughed.

It was true that foot rest between the television and sofa was a block of brightly-painted concrete that she had nicked from some construction site. Undoubtedly, the goldfish bowl that Kira had once left from work now housed potpourri scented with citrus, but Cagalli relished every bit of independence that she had and flaunted it in her own space.

"That said," He told her jokingly. "I don't know what Athrun will say."

"Oh come now, it won't take more than a few hours to get the data that he needs," She scoffed, waving her hands about the place. "And I don't really care what he'll say—he's not the one living here."

"How will you know how much data would be good enough?" Kira then questioned.

It seemed exceedingly obvious to her. "Athrun would know."

Tori chirped once, as if to confirm its recognition of its creator's name. The mechanical twang of its voice made Cagalli swallow and she shook her head once, trying to clear her thoughts.

Kira had been watching her quietly.

"Of course." He said, as if approving of the confidence in Athrun that she had unwittingly displayed. "He's good at what he does."

And discomforted by how dependent she had suddenly become with Kira's friend, she cleared her throat uncomfortably. Hoping to change the topic, she said, "Anyway, the questions are in your direction now."

"Yes?" Kira said, a little meekly. Clearly, he was taken aback by the shift in the conversation but far too obliging to refuse. "What do you want to know, Cagalli?"

"First things first: have you kissed Lacus yet?"

She chortled as she watched his face mimic his girlfriend's hair colour.

* * *

Back in the office, Dearka was losing his already highly-limited patience.

"Are you telling me that she actually sat there for a whole hour, smiling and nodding and listening to her lawyer work through a deal with you?"

"Yes."

Dearka breathed deeply, still desperately trying to find logic in an obviously illogical situation. He had been working hard on some rather small but tedious tenancy claims and had been even more disappointed by Athrun's news than Athrun himself had been. "And then she blew it off the second that you concluded that it was good to go?"

Glumly, Athrun fished around a nearly-empty jar for more tea leaves, dumping some into his mug before registering that the water had already gone cold. "I'm glad that you share my sentiments. Also, Dearka, I have to be honest and tell you that Dullindal actually doesn't mind losing this case in court—he just wants publicity from all of this. He hasn't said it, but I know that he doesn't care that we work ourselves dead to present him in court. If we lose, it's bad for this firm's reputation, but it doesn't really affect him. That's why he doesn't mind that much even if there's no settlement."

If Dearka's workload had been as heavy as a camel's, Athrun's news had been the last straw.

"Holy sh—,"

Lunamaria coughed at a precise and fortunate moment.

"—balls! This is ridiculous!" Dearka's hair apparently shared Athrun's frazzled state. He leapt up from his seat and stomped over to where Athrun had been working ever since returning from the afternoon's negotiation. "Gilbert Dullindal and Mia Campbell are both lunatics!"

Athrun spared his comments. "I suppose that a good strategy is to start preparing to go to court now. She wants Dullindal's blood, Dearka. She's not going to settle."

"No!"

"Yes." Athrun said morosely. "We're going to have to fight it out."

"You have to make another attempt at settling, Athrun." Dearka insisted. He rifled through some case documents, looking at the records of their meetings. When he found nothing to bolster his hopes, he lobbed it aside, beginning to pace. "From what Heine mentioned, she seemed alright with you. Try speaking nicely to her—maybe she'll reconsider."

Athrun took a deep breath. "No."

"Yes!"

"No." Athrun repeated. "This is getting ridiculous, Dearka. This isn't about establishing a rapport with our opponent's client anymore—this is just a waste of time."

He drank his cold tea and regretted instantly, frowning and returning to his files.

"Whatever." Dearka said shortly, stalking back to his table and ignoring the new pile of documents that Lunamaria had deposited onto his table. "There's a vendetta in this, Athrun, you know it as well as I do. Once we get rid of that vendetta, she will see that there's no reason to go to court. It just hurts her reputation, even if Heine tells us that she has recovered."

Dismayed, Athrun stared at his partner. It wasn't the first time that they had a difference in opinion, but he knew Dearka well enough to recognize the stubborn streak that he usually dealt with fairly well. "I don't know how to get rid of her unhappiness towards Dullindal, Dearka."

He did, but he would be darned if he had to smile and charm Mia Campbell into agreeing to settle. Mostly, Athrun was just thankful that he had an office to return to—Mia Campbell had not stopped clinging to him even when Heine had finally arrived.

"Well, didn't you suggest the strategy of distancing yourself from Dullindal?" Dearka demanded, turning around and staring hard at Athrun. "Just set some nice venue, ask her out and speak in an unaggressive way. Just ask Heine to go along with this and make her see the sense in settling by talking properly to her without the shadow of our client being in the forefront of all of this. I mean, Heine mentioned that she praised you—surely that's a start?"

It was then that Athrun found the punch-line about lawyers being quite similar to prostitutes extremely unfunny. Frustrated, he turned back to his desk, well aware that Lunamaria had stopped typing at some point and was listening to the little exchange between her bosses.

"Back to work then." Athrun said, trying not to grit his teeth.

* * *

On the Thursday evening after he'd technically knocked off work, Athrun found himself waiting in a grand, albeit slightly worn-down lobby. Normally, the marble-furnished place would have been a rather presentable front to the visitors, but this place was so filled with people and noise that anybody would have inferred the administrative backlog lingering behind the efficient, respectable façade of the Heliopolis city planning council headquarters.

Whenever he needed a break from crafting strategies to get the best deal for Dullindal for the upcoming settlement, Athrun simply closed his laptop and began counting things in random categories. Despite his general scorn and envy towards those who had to count sheep to fall asleep, counting seemed to provide a good distraction from thinking about Mia Campbell.

Over half-an-hour, Athrun watched the visitors in the main hall of the headquarters. He counted the number of graying visitors, the blondes, the fake blondes (the dark roots were always a giveaway), the brunettes, the number of bespectacled people within a five meter radius, and his personal favourite— harassed-looking workers.

The last category made a highly effective way of passing time, especially since it tended to be a large category everywhere and anywhere that Athrun went. The administrative officers in the License and Permit Inquiries section had jammed their smiles onto their faces and handled the inquiries behind their glass walls well enough. But on closer examination, they looked awfully exhausted.

That said, none of them looked nearly as worn out as those in the Public Housing Inquiries division at the other end of the lobby. It remained that Heliopolis had been aggressively expanding and developing over the past decade and the city planning council was swamped with businesses and all sorts of work. Naturally, the employees here were perennially overworked.

Glancing at the sheer volume of people who passed in and out of the revolving doors, Athrun was glad that he'd retained Rusty's contact and had arranged a meeting so easily with the statistical analyst. Surely, all those who came in and sought random services or simple, minor inquiries would wait longer than he would have to for information.

The Heliopolis city council had a few branches but the person he had in mind would not have been in anywhere lesser than the head quarters. In Athrun's opinion, lawyers were not quite as influential as people like Rusty McKenzie. The latter group was far less visible to the public, but they were the real orchestrators of rules and statutory guidelines. Policy-planners and executive officers like Rusty could determine as little as where a parking lot space would be located to even whether major skyscrapers would be torn down within a week.

Now, a rather attractive lady with a prim bun and kitten heels moved out from some security-heavy corridor. Where he rested against the elongated visitor seat that at least five other people shared, he noted that she was the eighth brunette that he'd counted in an hour.

But she began to look around, scanning the area and then making eye contact with Athrun. Weaving her way between a passing group of loudly-complaining people and another bunch of co-workers with dark eye circles, she headed towards him.

"Mr. Reid?" She offered her hand for him to shake as he stood up. "I'm Ephie. Mr. McKenzie's finished with the meeting. If you'll follow me, I'll bring you to his office. He'll be along in a bit."

"Thank you." Athrun said. From her nametag and her post, he inferred that she was on another statistics team, but probably worked in a sufficiently proximate department that allowed her access to Rusty's office quite easily.

And while he did wonder about the laxness of the internal security, Athrun was far too pleased at getting out of the packed lobby hall to question it.

He took his briefcase, following Rusty's colleague while she explained that Rusty had given her an exact description of his friend so she could locate him in the visitor's lobby.

"I daren't ask about the description that Rusty provided." Athrun said wryly.

"Oh, there was nothing bad about it." She glanced once at him, adjusting her dark-rimmed glasses, and then left him in the office.

In Rusty's office, Athrun had a good look around. With a start, he saw the silver-burnished plaque on Rusty's table, the rather formal font. The very name printed on it made him chuckle. Perhaps, all of Rusty's close friends and colleagues had nearly forgotten his real name— Athrun certainly had, except for this reminder. It was far too convenient to use that nickname when that carroty crop of hair had often confused many a player and spectator during a game of basketball back in their university days. Besides, Rusty had gone by the nickname for nearly a decade and it had simply stuck.

Surveying Rusty's table, Athrun found that it resembled his. But where Athrun's table was occupied with heavy practitioner texts, Rusty's books featured all sorts of council policies and frighteningly complex charts with decimals and large numbers that Athrun did not dare to really look at.

Still, Rusty had found enough space to display a cork board on the wall with photographs— a sentimental touch that featured the captured smiles of his university hostel mates, his family and his slobbering, hideous dog. Those formed a colourful mosaic against his wall, making Athrun look at the photographs and smile.

During their most recent dinner, he had asked Cagalli for her opinion on why _Dawn's Carriage_ sold so well. Surely, as Athrun had remarked, there had to be some magic behind the magazine. In this Galactic age and, most forms of print media had become obsolete a long time ago. Even the posters on lampposts were constantly changing images on miniature crystal screens and magazines did not seem to have any reason to do well.

For these reasons, Athrun had been puzzled at the sales of magazines like _Dawn's Carriage_ or the Heliopolis Tattler when most people around him would not touch a non-electronic book that was difficult to skim through. The traditional prints were just not as convenient as the updated, electronic collections of images. Those could be framed and plugged in slideshows with adjustable speeds.

Perhaps Cagalli had thought about the same questions before, answering quickly even as she worked her way through her lobster bisque. "I guess it's because people are sentimental creatures regardless of their surge towards modernity. Of course, _Dawn_'s content is designed to interest a reader, but there's a certain impact of seeing glossy pictures that moving images on screens can't capture. Having a frozen image—a good one, of course—that's something that you can't measure the impact of."

"I see." Athrun had said slowly, looking at her and wondering if that was why she chose to work in what he deemed a superficial industry.

She'd chewed a little more, shrugging. "Photographs have qualities that make me think of the frozen time. Those make me wonder who those people within that frame were and what was really happening at that time. There's an enigma about looking at well-composed photographs for me and maybe it's the same for others."

Listening to her and watching her eyes glow in the soft light, Athrun had thought that she made perfect sense. But he must have had embarrassed her with how intently he was listening and she'd dropped her gaze and mumbled. "Of course, it could just be that _Dawn_'s marketing strategy that's the real genius."

That was entirely possible too. But looking at Rusty's collection of candid, unedited photographs, Athrun felt more inclined to agree with her personal view. And thinking about her and the way that she'd insisted on taking a public light-rail train even though he'd wanted to send her home, he found a smile tugging on his lips.

Ephie, Rusty's colleague, interrupted his thoughts by knocking and coming in. She gave him an inquisitive look as she deposited a drink for him. "Rusty told me to prepare some equipment."

"I'm using it for a private nuisance case," He explained briefly, only because it seemed polite. "Is he coming soon?"

"Soon." Ephie told him, already bustling out. "The meeting's done. Just hang around."

All in all, Rusty's small office seemed awfully professional even if he wasn't the kind of spokesperson who required a presentable office to give interviews in. Rather, his work was mostly behind-the-scenes as he was a pretty important analyst on the policy-evaluation team that the city council hired. It was precisely this and his useful access to all sorts of equipment that made Athrun quite sure that Rusty was the man to look for. Heck, he was quite sure that if Cagalli had been free on this evening to meet Rusty with him, she would have demanded to come along too.

But Athrun had no time to ruminate on whether Cagalli would be better off speaking to Rusty herself, for the door beeped open and a flurry of papers and an impish-featured man squeezed in, shouting to somebody over his shoulder that he wasn't planning to do overtime today.

Panting, Rusty McKenzie turned back to the visitor in his office and beamed. "So how do you like my office?"

"A pigsty if there ever was one," Athrun said, shaking his head a little as he watched Rusty set down his things. "I approve, since mine resembles yours."

"Birds of a feather." Rusty barked his laughter and struggled to take off his jacket, adjusting his tie in a way that made Athrun think of a dog shaking off the remnants of an unwelcomed bath. "So you finally remembered that we had a relationship."

"Please don't talk like that in public, seeing that a great portion of it already thinks that I'm not really straight." Athrun grinned ruefully, getting up from the chair that he'd occupied to shake his friend's hand firmly. Rusty would have none of that, however, for he pulled Athrun into a brief hug and gave him a light punch on the shoulder.

"Not the part of the public that counts though. I think Ephie's still outside, trying to catch a glimpse of you." Rusty grinned widely. "You've met my colleague, right? One of the architect-consultants has been dying to get a date with her, so count yourself lucky that she's even taking interest with my visitor."

Athrun shot an incredulous glance at the door. "Your colleague probably wants to confirm that I swing the other way."

"Probably wants to confirm that you don't." Rusty pointed out, presumably barring Ephie from trying to enter by leaning his weight against the door. "Although I heard about all that vandalism on your poor old car."

Leaning back into his chair, Athrun shrugged. "Oh, the police settled that quite quickly for me. The repairs went fine."

"I'll say." Rusty confirmed, now sliding into his own chair and fanning himself in lackluster attempt to cool down from the mad rush of the day. He looked with apologetic eyes at Athrun. "You know, I was a little worried that people would attack you and Dearka, but I never did manage to call and check. We're always like that, I'm afraid. Like the time with your father when you set up the firm with Dearka? I heard some rumours about how your father was dissatisfied about something and was trying to write you out of his enterprises—I was realy concerned. I even heard about how you were written off the inheritance, but I wasn't sure that you'd wanted to talk about it and —,"

"Don't worry about it." Athrun waved it off hastily. "We're nearing thirty, Rusty. A little homophobic sentiment or the way that we never quite keep in contact as often as we should isn't really anything to get upset about."

"True, true," Rusty agreed, shuffling things aside and fetching out some papers. He looked at them quickly, then tossed them back into a pile and began digging once more. "Especially since we're meeting up like this again."

"Yes, well," Athrun bit back a sigh, thinking about Dearka and how he'd stayed late in the office today to get the case for the surgeons prepared. While Athrun had finished the work assigned to him, he wasn't feeling particularly comfortable about not offering to help ease some of Dearka's workload and running off to work on another case in secret. "My thanks in advance, Rusty."

"Sure, but I'm not sure I heard you correctly over the phone. My gut feeling is that if you think that the plans for the Genesis showroom are causing some private nuisance, you're going have to rethink that. But hey, I'm not the lawyer." Rusty finally pulled out the right set. "Aha!"

Taking it from his friend, Athrun scanned through quickly. What little hope he now left him with his sigh. "Just as I thought."

"Are you planning on sweet-talking old, waffly, slightly senile judges, Athrun?" Rusty inquired. "Not to burst your bubble or anything and you can be sure that I don't know as much about the law as you. But from what I know, there's generally the statutory defence to what could be a private nuisance."

"I know." Athrun said dejectedly. "I also know that the Heliopolis city council isn't just allowing the Genesis conglomerate to set up the sports car showroom—they really, really want the showroom."

Rusty looked curiously at him. "What I've given you is the copy of the agreement inked. If Genesis corporation has the express or implied right under a statute to carry on the activity causing the nuisance, then there can be no claim for private nuisance. You know that, don't you?"

"Depressingly well." Athrun shook his head, running his finger down the second set of documents that Rusty had prepared for him. He looked up, trying to inject hope into the general outlook of things. "But if we can show that the nuisance was not inevitable and could have been avoided by the exercise of reasonable care, we might have a case."

"Well, hold that thought." Rusty began to dig around again.

The table between them was filled with all sorts of books and stacks of work, and watching Rusty shift those aside to find some chart of available equipment was a kind of sideshow in itself.

Really, Athrun thought, he would have to organise Rusty's table for him, just like in the old days when they'd shared a dormitory room and Rusty's rubbish had overflowed from the dustbin for weeks.

"Here!" Rusty thrilled proudly, waving a bunch of papers in the air triumphantly. "You can go fetch the equipment after this."

"I'll be really careful with it," Athrun promised. "Once the week's over, I'll bring it right back here."

"Sure. You can use whatever equipment that I've asked Ephie to prepare," Rusty said easily, pointing at a manual that he orientated to suit Athrun. "But from what I checked about this noise-pollution guideline, the noise that's currently generated would probably be reasonable. The city council hates dealing with more complaints than we already have, so it tends to do testing and settling agreements with the various corporations even before the blueprints are approved. No certification has actually been done by the city council yet, because of backlog and how badly it wants to bring in more tourists by way of the permanent Genesis showrooms, but I really don't think that there's any problem with the constuction's noise level. "

"I see." Athrun checked his own documents, thinking hard. "But we could try arguing that the area of residence is a pretty secluded, high-end one. The character of the neighbourhood and the prices are directly linked to privacy and the peace and quiet there. What do you think?"

Rusty squinted, looking at the points that Athrun had passed to him.

"That place of your client's? From a layman's point of view, it sounds possible," Rusty conceded. "It's a really posh area, if I'm not wrong."

Athrun had been surprised to note that too, but the place was certainly a high-end, almost suburban area with the forest and lakes that Cagalli had claimed to have a view of.

Rusty glanced curiously at him. "By any chance, is this person some kind of rich businessman's son?"

Athrun took a split-second to conclude that he didn't really know much about how Cagalli had come to live in a place like that while adopting a different surname from Kira's. "For starters, Rusty, my client's a madwoman."

"They all tend to be mad, don't they?" Rusty said sympathetically, standing up, stretching and yanking off his tie entirely now. "But will that argument really work in a court if you consider that development has to go on anyway? Posh place or not, I don't think the city will lose out in the long run. The projected increase of space tourists to Heliopolis is in the millions, Athrun, and the corporation's desperate to finish the project on time for their own steamrolled profit-making enterprises too. They're already torn down a quarter of the roped off area, and the scaffolding's starting next week. Like you said, I think it hinges on whether you can prove that the noise is just way too loud for the judges to ignore the injunction that you're asking for."

"And considering the acceptable and rather wide ranges of noise pollution that the relevant statutes and city planning council guidelines allow for—," Athrun consulted the chart again, frowning now. It was obvious what the answer was.

"It's a bit silly to fight this change, really." Rusty told him.

Privately, Athrun wondered what Cagalli would say when presented with it. Whatever the case, he decided, some ground work would have to be covered fast for them to collect evidence. If the schedule that Rusty had provided was anything to go by, their dinner venue would have to be shifted to her place.

He began to say something to Rusty but a tentative knock on the door sounded and Ephie popped her head in. "I've got the okay for shifting out the equipment."

Rusty turned to her. "Aha, that's good. Athrun, do you need help putting it into your car?"

"Eh?" Distracted from his documents, Athrun raised his eyes to meet the gaze of the secretary who'd come in. But his thoughts were still focused on the documents before him and he gave them all a blank stare until Rusty said loudly, "So, are you doing anything this weekend, Athrun-Reid-Who-Happens-To-Be-One-Of-Heliopolis'-Most-Eligible-Bachelors?"

It was when Athrun realized that Ephie was staring right at him. He tried not to give in to the urge to physically wipe the smirk off Rusty's face with the silver plague on the table.

"What?" Rusty hissed back, noticing the murderous look that Athrun leveled at him.

On a normal day, Athrun would have thought that she was quite attractive with her pale skin and perfectly done nails, especially with the nice chignon that her sleek hair had been pulled into. For sure, the pencil skirt that she wore highlighted her figure quite nicely, and she was neat, prim and pretty in that understated way.

That said, Athrun had not experienced many normal days in the recent weeks.

"Actually," Ephie said shyly, still not daring to come into the office but stubbornly refusing to leave them. "I'd like Mr. Reid's autograph for someone."

"Oh, that's a new one!" Rusty sprang to his feet, striding to Athrun's side of the desk and pulling him up too. "Most people just ask for the time, but you've got it going for you, Ephie. Boy, I like your honesty—," He laughed boisterously, putting a pen into Athrun's hand and grabbing the paper that Ephie hesitantly presented to them.

"Just so you know," Rusty told his colleague happily, "Athrun only writes in numbers."

"Stuff it, Rusty," Athrun protested, signing his name fast and wondering what on earth was going on. He would have declined, except that this seemed like a good way to get out of an apparently crazy place where nothing made sense anyway. Hurriedly, he looked at Ephie, hoping that she would not notice Rusty's attempts to throw them together.

"Well, I was wondering if you were _that_ Athrun Reid." She averted her eyes and fidgeted, smiling awkwardly all the while. "I confirmed it with Rusty, and I just knew that I had to come talk to you."

"I'll say." Rusty said gleefully, while Athrun tried to stamp on his foot discretely.

Thankfully, Ephie was too caught up looking at Athrun rapturously to notice. "I was really impressed at the way Mr. Reid defended Mr. Le Creuset. I was so inspired and so touched by your efforts to defend people who just want to love freely, sir. Like Mr. Le Creuset and you, I know exactly how you feel about being discriminated against just because one is different, and I want you to know that I will never forget what you achieved. "

Admittedly, Athrun found himself flattered by the glowing praise of his work, even if he did not have the heart to repeat what Dearka had stated quite simply from the start to the end of the case. For all the controversy and hype surrounding the case, Le Creuset was just another paying client—such was the edge of cold professionalism. Had their clients been the defendant, Athrun was quite sure that they would have taken the job anyway. Personal beliefs simply did not come into the picture for solicitors, but of course, Ephie did not need to know that.

And now that Ephie's rather continuous staring had been explained, Athrun took the liberty of shaking her hand again. Naturally, he ignored the whoop of delight from Rusty, who was probably congratulating himself on having set up Athrun with Ephie.

"Er—who and how should I address it to?" Athrun asked.

"Oh, to Jeanette."

"Right." He scribbled the name hastily in his confusion and tried to hand her the autograph, but Rusty would have none of that.

"This is a beautiful, beautiful meeting." Rusty pulled Ephie back in very insistently, winking at Athrun and then pointing at the second name on the paper that Athrun passed back to her. "So when did your baby sister start aspiring to be a lawyer like my friend here, eh?"

Ephie had been looking at the paper with a pleased, slightly dazed expression, but now she glanced at her colleague in surprise.

"What baby sister?"

"Jeanette?" Rusty pointed at the name on the autograph.

"Oh, no, Rusty. Jeanette's, well—," She smiled, looking even more dreamily at the autograph. "Well, we're together."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, as Rusty and Athrun silently loaded the last of the equipment into the car. It took them a couple more minutes before Athrun felt ready to speak.

"I just want you to know this," He told Rusty as he shut the boot, "Apart from meeting a woman who looked exactly like Lacus, that was one of the weirdest things that I've ever been through."

"Yeah, well, you seem to run into weirdos all the time—what with that case of yours." Rusty happened to brush his hand against Athrun's, closing the boot too.

What should have been an unremarkable moment became a tense one as he withdrew his hand very quickly, looking around in his paranoia to see if anyone had seen the contact and decided to mistake it for something else. "If it helps, that conversation was the weirdest thing that happened to me besides being born."

Athrun sighed once more, shifting his weight to one foot. "I have no idea whether to be annoyed or amused at what you put me up to, but thank you again for the equipment and the information. I'll bring my client to meet you if you'd like to see her."

He wondered if Rusty would actually like Cagalli. Like Rusty, Cagalli seemed a little scatterbrained but incredibly and dangerously sharp in the most inconvenient of times for Athrun.

"Right, the madwoman?" Rusty chuckled. "I have a colleague whom I've always assumed to be as straight as the pencils that she sharpens. So yes, I think I'm prepared, and this sounds like an interesting one. I presume that she's some weird, butch-type environmental advocate that you suddenly saw eye to eye with?"

Thinking about their first encounter and the way that he had pressed her down in a tackle, Athrun decided not to comment. "I'll just let you meet her and decide for yourself."

"But you know, it's startling how people think that Mr. Eligible Bachelor is actually gay just because you were counsel for Le Creuset." Rusty tapped his fingers lazily against the boot, waving to some colleagues who drove off from their designated parking lots in the distance. "Wonder what your dad thought then, since it was around the same time that you broke up with Lacus Clyne."

Athrun sighed, running a hand through his hair tiredly. "It was all coincidental that our relationship wasn't working out about the same time when she met Kira. At that time, his then-girlfriend was also the daughter of the man that Le Creuset was suing."

Rusty snorted. "Small world. And then your old man found out that you were representing some gay man and had broken up with Plant's pop princess in between the proceedings."

"Oh, he wasn't afraid to let me know exactly what he thought about it and about me." Athrun said blandly. He leaned against his car, looking at the darkening sky and frowning a little. "Nearly shot me in the arm, if I dare say so myself."

"Didn't he arrange the engagement?" Rusty gave a low, long whistle. "He must have really liked Lacus Clyne."

"She's a lovely girl." Athrun said shortly. "But I think he liked her hold on those Freedom Corp shares better."

As they exchanged a glance, Rusty looked highly apologetic. "You've had it tough, my friend. And you still have those shares in the Justice project? You're the majority shareholder, right?"

"As long as I don't sell them, I am." Athrun shrugged once, beginning to loosen his tie. "I inherited those from my mother, so I don't think I will for a long time." He undid it entirely, unbuttoning his collar to breathe a little better. "Anyway, I'm not an active shareholder. I have my work elsewhere and cases to see to."

Rusty pointed to the boot. "But I wonder what he'll think of you aligning yourself with some noise-sensitive-hippie-madwoman. He'll know, you know? Eventually."

"I'm just being professional." Athrun said stubbornly and lying right through his teeth. "As long as there's a workable case that arrives, we take it."

Rusty chortled. "Takes a madman to take work from a madwoman."

Grimacing now, Athrun cleared his throat and then lifted his briefcase containing the precious documents that Rusty had photocopied for him. "Do me a favour, Rusty. Right after I finish this sentence, we will not mention a few things ever again. That includes this madwoman case that I'm working on, that cringe-worthy experience with your lesbian colleague, Patrick Zala, the Heliopolis Tattler and most importantly—," He took a deep breath, "—that blasted manhunt to anyone at all, thank you very much."

Athrun paused again, looking hard at Rusty. "Especially not my parent and that those enterprises of his."

Rusty whistled in apparent awe. "I was really hoping that it would get better at some point. Are you both planning to stay on the rocks?"

"Actually, we've severed ties. Officially. It's not in any magazine because he banned any gossip-vultures from attacking, but you can take my word for it." Athrun opened the car door, getting in dejectedly. "Push came to shove, and his insistence that I return to work for Genesis by bringing up the firm's mortgage was the last straw."

And Rusty laughed, folding his arms as he nodded wisely. "The way I see it, this town just ain't big enough for the two of you."


	7. We'll make better mistakes tomorrow

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.**

* * *

A/N: Wow, it's been forever! But to the dear readers/reviewers, thanks for hanging in there! To make up for my incredibly long absence, this is going to be an extra long chapter. Well, it would have been anyway, but every bit of consolation helps, yes?

* * *

_"There are three types of lies- lies, damn lies, and statistics."_

_-Benjamin Disraeli_

* * *

**Chapter 7: ****We'll make better mistakes tomorrow**

* * *

When Wednesday evening arrived, it was clear that Cagalli was neither being punctual nor avoiding all the people that she'd mentally tagged with red flags after sour personal experiences: abusive insurance agents, hyper-motivated telemarketers, shady health-product promoters and mostly every kind of solicitor.

All this irony made her very, very agitated.

Although she had successfully cut the queue for a taxi and raced up to her apartment floor, the tight schedule and Nartarle's unexpected drop-in at the Lifestyle and Leisure department guaranteed that she reached only after her lawyer had.

By the time the lift doors opened and she sprang out, panting and heaving her bag and its complimentary human out, it was clear that Athrun had been waiting around for more than a few minutes.

"Crumbs, you were waiting!" Cagalli said, equally horrified at being late and him actually turning up at her door. This was despite them scheduling for it, but the sight of him outside her apartment had sent an awful sense of foreboding that she shook away impatiently, trying to dismiss her nerves. Failing to, she blamed it on the recent conversation with Kira.

In the background, the drilling sounds and crane-shifting continued and she winced involuntarily. Apparently, Athrun had been scribbling notes while listening to those sounds. Next to him, a sizeable box of equipment was propped up.

He had looked up at her as she appeared, blinking just once as he took in her damp bangs and flustered appearance. Despite her growing assurance about him, she had half-hoped that he would drop her case by now, sure that it was better for her. Still, he had certainly persisted and been rather fearless about dealing with her and a bit of remorse wormed its way into her when she watched him set aside his notepad.

"This is a world where the pizza gets to your door faster than the police when you need them," Athrun said with great dignity. "Of course I ended up being early."

She gazed at him and thought it was remarkable how unperturbed he seemed with the noise, along with the kind of things that he could say without her being sure if he was joking or not.

But then he smiled a little and suddenly there was a different kind of crackle to the air, a sharp peak of feeling that made her flounder for a second.

"R-Right."

She dropped her gaze, mumbling her apology and fumbling in her bag for her keys, willing them to get in quickly. On one memorable occasion, the fellow living opposite her had smirked when Cagalli had half-hugged, half-ushered a drunk and crying Kira into her apartment, probably thinking the worst of her supposed indiscretion. With this waiting visitor, it somehow seemed worse and Cagalli was glad that the adjacent four units had no more occupants to witness all these ongoings.

Her most recent conversation with Kira had certainly turned up some interesting things about his friend and Cagalli was hysterical with laughter when presented with some of their childhood shenanigans. Then again, her twin had done more than provide some background context to their deep friendship and the probable reason why Athrun had even bothered helping Cagalli with a weak case. Some of the things that Kira had mentioned were sobering and even now, she recalled the seriousness and sympathy in her twin's expression.

"To be honest," Kira had remarked during the video-call, "I trust him because I know that he's had a hard time. He's never said it, but I know that he wants to help people who are in difficult situations too- he's much kinder than most realize, but I guess he willingly hides behind the formalities and stiffness of his job. Maybe you find it difficult to read and trust him because he's quiet and removed from most people. Did you ever wonder why? Have you noticed how he's always deep in thought and how he says little about himself?"

"No." She'd said, being quite brutal because she actually had. Cruelly, unnecessarily and quite uncharacteristically, she added, "Wonder if he has a strategy for getting laid."

"You'd be surprised." Kira had said airily and Cagalli regretted it instantly. "He's not a spontaneous person by nature and his detachment from others just makes it easier for him to just get on with making a living and distancing the guilt."

"What?"

Kira had sighed. "I mean, there was the guilt of not being around when his mother died and he was thirteen, studying in some other city. His mother meant a lot to him and I think his dad wasn't around very much, being on business trips and that kind of thing for most part. They don't get along and Athrun's mother's death made things even harder."

"I wouldn't have guessed," she admitted.

"Well, I guess he was always a bit shy and withdrawn as a kid, but moving to a few cities once every few years as a youngster made it hard for him to really settle down and make long-term friends- those must have been difficult times for him."

"How did she die?" Cagalli mumbled, quite startled at Kira telling her what he had.

"Some awful factory accident in one of the old industrial-section Plants- quite a few others were fatally wounded too. I heard about it much later and only from some other friend. See, after we'd both moved out of Coppernicus to go to different middle schools, we lost contact. I guess he's probably trying to make up for that by helping me out now- indirectly, anyway. I think you're beginning to see that he's not a bad sort at all, aren't you?"

Distracted as she was with locating her keys, Cagalli was aware that Athrun was still staring at her as she shuffled things around. Uncomfortably, she turned her back towards him, still hoping that her fingers would magically fish them out.

"God- this is taking so long, I don't know why!"

As all bad days went, she simply could not find them and she felt her cheeks flush. Trying to bite back her frustration and also trying not to feel self-conscious with how intently he was watching her, Cagalli began to get more flustered, privately and irrationally blaming her toe-bullying work heels and just about everything within a ten-meter radius.

"Just, just hold on." she promised, not even sure why she was grasping something more intangible than the week's worth of rubbish that somehow congregated in her bag.

"Hey," Athrun said, a tinge of surprise actually entering his voice as he watched. "It's no problem, really."

"It's just-It's just that I'm urgent," she said through gritted teeth, hoping that the keys would grow ears and listen to her pleas. It was true- true but false at the same time.

Helplessly, she laughed once, quite at a loss with the long day of hard work, the stress of commuting and the sudden, blinding realization that some distant, unwelcomed figure standing above her on the city asphalt had abruptly become something of a friend- a person whom she had gained a sudden surge of sympathy and familiarity towards.

"Do you need help?" Athrun offered, sounding somewhat apprehensive. He tentatively put a hand on her shoulder and she stiffened, suddenly sensitive to their contact.

He had immediately retracted his hand and was looking awkwardly at something else. Instantly regretting her instinctive reaction, Cagalli mustered a smile and turned around. Truly pinning it on Kira for making her feel quite sympathetic towards the solicitor, she took things out of her bag, passing it brusquely to Athrun. "Hold this for me, thanks."

He was probably baffled by what she removed from the bag, but he wordlessly took a coil of computer wire as she reeled it out of. That wasn't all— she passed him a whole handful of enamel bangles.

Knowing the nature of _Dawn's Carriage_, it was probably some branded merchandise. Next came some earrings and even a portable hair curler that he reckoned Cagalli probably didn't even use.

"Sorry," she said gruffly. "I carry lots of junk."

"Don't worry," He told her, mostly admiring the deceptively slim dimensions of Cagalli's bag. He accepted all the subsequent things that she threw out, including one diary, and then a schedule book, and then another. Almost casually and regretfully out of covert practice on others, his eyes slid south from her face and made a quick study, as if to reconfirm that she was wearing the soft silk blouse, fawn-coloured pencil skirt and those shoes.

But Athrun had no extra time to stare, for she was depositing her cell and her portable music player with him. At this point, he was using two hands to hold everything, but she threw out a foldable umbrella and pen anyway.

He noticed that she was very well-prepared. Just in case the one-in-a-thousand-years earthquake struck and emergency lights somehow failed for some miraculous reason, there was also a large, manual-current torchlight- made especially for situations when one ran out of batteries. In this day and Cosmic age, most people had emergency solar-powered lights built into their electronic house systems, but there was definitely one good old-fashioned doomsday prepper right before him.

He involuntarily gave a low-whistle under his breath, quite unable to resist from the collective sight of all the articles and her general rosy, flushed appearance. But she scrunched her face at him.

"Do you mind?" Cagalli said breathlessly. "I'm trying to hold it in."

He had to laugh. There was little else that he could do as he juggled the things. In fact, his briefcase was currently stationed between his knees. His hands were filled with absolutely irrelevant things, especially since he was contemplating how hard she would punch him if he suddenly kissed her. To top it off, there was even a pair of rather ostentatious silver-plated cufflinks suddenly glinting in his palms and he swallowed, realizing the possibilities of her actually seeing someone.

Haplessly, Athrun looked around, wondering if some neighbor would pop out of their unit and see a man balancing his briefcase between his knees, five things in one hand and seven in another while a woman continued searching for her keys. The women in his life weren't supposed to be complicated- but neither was a set of house-keys.

"The bugger was in the corner!" Cagalli hissed, producing the culprits quite suddenly. She gave a sigh of relief that she didn't notice Athrun sharing, proceeding to unlock the door at a record speed.

"Wait!" He tried, belatedly recalling that there was a box of equipment to shift in.

But she raced in without another word, leaving Athrun at the entrance with all sorts of things in his hands.

He could only peer in, deciding whether to bunny-hop with his briefcase between his knees, or to wait for her to come back and help him. He checked to see that there was no activity from the closed grills of the neighbors' units, and chose the former option, eventually making two trips to shift the equipment in. Upon closing her unit's main door, he heard about eight auto locks click and had to raise his brows.

Never mind if he was keeping this from Dearka, Athrun decided, staring at his client's home. Never mind if he was doing this meeting for free. Never mind that Kira was sure Athrun would end up bursting a vessel within a month of interacting with Cagalli. Never mind that Athrun was sure he would end up bursting two vessels within another week of hanging around her.

Simply put, Cagalli was simply unforgettable in the way that Athrun had found his nose almost broken when he'd been unlucky and drunk enough to engage Yzak Joule in a bar brawl. It was very visual, thrilling, and almost numbing in its pain.

As he stowed his shoes away on the rack, settled onto the couch and took in her apartment's quirky appearance, he thought it was possible that she was some kind of hermit without a social life. While there were parks nearby and the thick greenery that she'd alluded to with her drawing, her place was slightly remote in the way that people would actually pay for. Overall, this location was posh and rather secluded from the city center and with how she had behaved around Yuna Roma Seiran and what Kira had implied about his twin, Athrun felt it was certainly possible that Cagalli didn't want too much of others' company. It didn't seem in line with what he had observed about Cagalli's fairly open and direct ways so far, but then again, Athrun had to admit that he didn't know much about her preferences or background either. It was all very fascinating.

"I don't get it," He'd confessed generally, mentioning all sorts of things to Lacus over a phone call while never admitting his alarming interest in Cagalli Atha. "How can she and Kira be so different if they're twins? I mean, you've met her- didn't it strike you that they were like night and day?"

"Well, I liked how direct and refreshing she seems," His ex-fiancee and long-time friend had pointed out calmly. "Kira's not going to blame you if you don't. Besides, if you really have a problem with her, I'm sure Kira would understand. But do you?"

"Er-no. Not that way, no."

From what he observed now, however, he could tell that Cagalli was probably good at her job.

Admiringly, he noted some rather arresting visual decorations on a wall, amused at how those featured all sorts of cosy, quaint food advertisements and nothing of the beautiful, if slightly unreal magazine models that she worked with. Then he went to the mantelpiece, staring at some photographs of Kira and some other friends whom he didn't know. None of them seemed to be dating Cagalli, but he wasn't supposed to be looking out anyway. Conspicuously, there were no pictures of her teenage-herself- none growing up, none with the usual graduation shtick. Nor were there images of Kira as a teenager either.

But in the corner, there was a tiny, crumpled photograph of a smiling, amber-eyed woman holding babies and with some shock, Athrun realized that he was staring at a very young Kira and Cagalli in their mother's arms.

"Not bad, eh?" Cagalli said suddenly, from behind him. "My first and last memento of her."

He turned around, clearing his throat.

Having thrown her coat somewhere against the couch, she was holding up a glass of iced tea and barefoot without stockings, a maddening smudge of rose gloss straying over her bottom lip because she'd failed to notice. She stood right next to him on some uncarpeted sections of the floor- that cocktail of fading musk and citrus scent with the clear lavender in the soap and the hints and stress of the city. Prudently, Athrun reminded himself that his nervousness was due to having been ogling her photographs- just!-her photographs.

"You look like her." He cleared his throat again, trying not to seem unnatural as she set down the drink for him and made a trip to the kitchen to bring out some packet meals.

"Do I?" Her gaze seemed to soften as her eyes met his and her voice was strangely like a sigh. "I don't really remember her—it's just a keepsake that my father gave me."

"Kira's father?" The words were out before Athrun could clamp his mouth shut. He had not planned to know or ask about these things, but it seemed that he could not help asking about things beyond the job necessities.

Vaguely, Kira had mentioned something about not knowing his mother. As far as Athrun could remember, Kira's parents had given him up for adoption quite some time ago—he'd been living with his uncle's family for some time. From the looks of it and where she was living, Cagalli also seemed to have experienced that too.

She must have guessed his thoughts, for her eyes flickered towards him. Her lips began to purse but she didn't seem as terse or resentful as she might have been. There was a queer expression on her face as she gazed at him and she shrugged once.

"I was adopted by a very kind person, even if it was something of a coincidence," She said finally. "I don't know any other father, but I guess Kira lived with our mother's sister all this time and didn't either. Actually, let's not bore you with these things."

And Cagalli started angling a frame to her tastes and then looking towards the balcony when she was done.

"Come on," She muttered. "Let's check out the other rooms."

* * *

They took something of a brief tour around her place, starting down the single corridor that she had in the smallish apartment.

It was fascinatingly well-furbished, considering how she must have scrounged and sourced for the various pieces of furniture and household items to make this place feel like home. It was obvious that she was not paid handsomely for the job, seeing that she had not gone for pricey porcelain or that sort of thing, but chosen items that she recycled and arranged quite artfully in her place. Then again, Athrun supposed that her tastes might have simply strayed from the usual lace curtains and pointlessly expensive crystal ware, because this apartment was certainly worth a neat little bundle with its location and mature estate anyway.

"The storeroom had things falling over when they started laying the basic groundwork," Cagalli mentioned. "Nothing smashed, but I guess I thought it was a one-off. Then it started to happen more. I haven't really unpacked much since I moved in, so there wasn't too much trouble. But I don't know- is that important for your submissions?"

"Most certainly," Athrun responded, actually wondering about why she hadn't unpacked much. "We'll argue as if you'd unpacked your things and had to re-organise this place as a result of things falling around."

"That's lying though, isn't it?" She looked a bit uncomfortable for a second, reminding Athrun exactly why he dreaded really getting into excruciating, minor details of his work with a certain category of clients that she apparently belonged to. "I mean, I have unpacked a little, but I would have had to re-organise it with or without things falling since, you know, that's part of unpacking."

"Not really. It's just embellishing." He paused and turned away. "Do you recall those exact dates?"

"About a month ago- hang on, let me check. I think I noted those down."

He watched her move out of the cramped but fairly well-organised storeroom with still-labeled and tightly-sealed cardboard boxes, ostensibly fetching her diary or something.

The good news, he told himself, was that this case was on its way. The bad news, he realized, was that pencil skirt.

When she got back and he recorded down the alleged dates, she had remembered other incidents that she attributed to the construction. Moving along the corridor, she pointed out some old books that periodically fell off a ledge when the construction got more vigorous at some points and he carefully noted those instances down, apart from the titles themselves and what her tastes tended towards.

"Got to prioritize," He berated himself in a mumble.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Her bedroom was simple, some clutter in corners and a happily self-sufficient indoors fern peeping from the window sill. It wasn't a big one, so she'd mirrored the surfaces of her wardrobe and it easily reflected all there was in the room. He had never noticed cosmetics, contact cases, powders and those kinds of items that put men like him slightly at a loss, but he somehow noted the perfume that she used. This was apart from the beer can on the adjacent table, yet to be opened with the work files and efficient little desk-light. Because she had been caught up explaining something about the structure of the four apartments on every floor of this apartment building, she had probably forgotten about all the things that were still apparent in her room.

With brief amusement, he watched her rush at them when she finally laid eyes on those. Books, some notepads, some clippings, some brochures about holidays, a packet of gummy bears and some lingerie that he tried not to stare at in the least. Not that he was really looking, of course- she tussled up all the things on her bed, shoving them into a basket somewhere at the side.

"Sorry," She said, getting red-faced about the messy papers and pens and various items of clothing on her bedspread. It was remarkable how easily flustered she was these days, he noted, considering how tough and hard-headed she had seemed in the Cosmos Café those weeks back. "Actually, I was in a rush this morning. The place is normally neater than this."

"Not a problem." He told her, focusing on something else and finding how much he actually liked the cartoonish, multi-coloured robot-patterned shower curtains as he snuck a peek into the bathroom. Some of the prints featured little "iadnab"speech bubbles from the robots and he squinted. He tried to imagine himself standing in the shower to figure out what they were saying while soaping and lathering, but mostly ended up visioning something tangentially related.

Shaking himself out of his highly unnecessary and inappropriate daze, Athrun suddenly realized that she was asking him about some possible damage to the property.

"There's a bit of a crack here," She pointed out at the wall and he followed the web of cracks with his gaze. "Although I'm not sure the noise was causing that with the vibrations and all- this place is pretty old, actually."

"We can get an expert in to check that out," he assured her, relying on Dearka's one lesson that proved invaluable each time anyone was in a pinch- delegating.

"Exactly." She said, agreeing and thus confirming that they were well and truly getting along at cross-purposes.

* * *

They eventually found themselves back in her living room, standing forlornly before the mantle and trying not to look at the photographs that lined it.

"So that's pretty much it." Cagalli told him, expression a bit guarded, almost as if he was a potential buyer for the place.

Behind them, the construction was still going on, never mind that they had been in her apartment since six-thirty. Obviously, the project was slated to complete in record time for an extra boost of positive publicity, but there was certainly an element of nuisance as far as Athrun's general sense allowed for. Nobody would have been so annoyed, he thought, not if the work had stopped by seven.

He took a few more notes, but Cagalli wasn't about to let him forget that she was around.

"What do you think?" She questioned, forcing him to voice his thoughts.

"I've been thinking about the noise," Athrun said awkwardly. He cast an eye to the glass of iced-tea, noting how it continued to vibrate slightly even as they spoke. "I think it's fairly obvious that your windows and things are vibrating a little from the construction. Maybe you really do have a case- but the opposing counsel would argue that compensation would be the only solution, if they were willing to provide it at all. They'll certainly fight your case for an injunction, even if I'm certain that we can definitely get it past the counter-arguments of this being vexatious."

"By next week, I guess you can start filing." Cagalli said, apparently just as keen to leave the mantel piece and going to the couch. "There's no physical damage here, obviously. But going with the character of the neighbourhood, I suppose you're right that there's a better possibility there."

"First things first," He decided, going back to the equipment box and pulling its lid open. He lifted out the first component, gesturing to it. "We'll set up this equipment and leave it to record for a week and I think you'll have some pretty good data to submit regarding the interference to the use and enjoyment of your property. I've passed you the timeline of our plan of action- we should be able to make it and anyway, I've already begun drafting. We'll just insert the values once you collect the data. "

He began opening the digital manual, a Haro-planner that was identical to every member of Lacus' clan bouncing out to list what Cagalli had to do. Funnily enough, its voice was without any sense of urgency, rather reminiscent of a tenured, slightly eccentric professor addressing a lecture room of uninterested students. It was a man's, fairly young and almost casual, slurring syllables and drawling over some of the more technical parts, swearing almost affectionately when he tried to describe and differentiate some "fucking ordinary bolt" from this or that random "cocksucker of a cap" and how they needed to "properly mash that component onto the first section of the body before turning it on, or some shitstorm would start blowing".

"Trust Rusty to lose the original manual," Athrun muttered darkly as she chuckled. "I wish somebody else had recorded this."

In a semi-respectful, concentrated silence and barely-restrained hilarity, the two of them sat there, listening and working to sort out the machine. The evening was cooling enough because she'd turned on the air-conditioner and the ruby reach of the sunset was barely noticed as they fixed the machine together.

But then her stomach made an abrupt sound of protest and she coloured, for it was all that he needed to burst out laughing, actually laughing with his voice ringing into the air and soaring over the dull hum of machines in the distance. It broke the air and the sound of it struck something in her, its lack of inhibition and crescendo familiar and unknown all at once, dissolving the residual awkwardness and her discomfort at knowing something of a past that he was not really sharing about.

Then she was giggling too, throwing aside the spanner for adjusting the machine and getting up with him.

"I need food," she declared.

She found herself marching them into her tiny kitchen and yanking a drawer open for cutlery. In a corner, the pressure cooker was glowing warm, the soup that she'd prepared in the morning long ready with portions for three peckish or two ravenous people. "If I'm going to fight this out with a corporation that focused on cutting through the forest, I'll need energy. I'm a growing girl, you know?"

"And you're going to eat with your enemy again?" He grinned at her, leaning against some cabinet and taking bowls.

Cagalli considered him- the way he had taken to sitting on her floor in his black socks to get at the machine, sleeves rolled up again and his brow furrowed in concentration and lips twitching at Rusty's occasional wisecracks. He had stooped over the lowish entrance of the kitchen, but in here, he looked surprisingly at home.

And suddenly, she knew that Kira had not done her a favour by telling her of things that made her sympathize with a man who was probably running from something as she was. Already, the presence of food and surprisingly enjoyable company was lulling her into that old reminiscence- something in her had whispered that perhaps, just perhaps, it was alright to open up to him a little.

But then they had already dined together more than once; the basil, potatoes and chicken were already cooked and in re-heatable containers, merely waiting for her to get them out of the fridge. She would leave the wine and beers in there, but the Chunky Monkey ice cream she was prepared to share. This case was on its way, her plans and work for all these years finally bringing her back to Orb and the looming promotion at _Dawn _her final step towards regaining what had been taken from Uzumi Nara Atha and driven him to unspeakable burden and eventual death. In the living room, the machine was already starting to measure sounds, the construction forgotten for now. Besides, there were the Mars bars that he had brought.

She looked at him, already ladling out the soup and fetching something else. There was that annoying guilt when she pondered how tired he must have been after a full day of work.

"You're okay." Cagalli said decisively.

* * *

The day after the next, he was back at her place, supposedly measuring Rusty's machine's reaction to the ongoing construction. They had not really mentioned anything about him needing to go over again, but Cagalli had called during her lunch break and arranged to discuss the measurements.

"I'm not sure if I'm reading it correctly, but I think it's over the permitted city council levels," She told him when he arrived, so elated that she took his suitcase and propped it up somewhere, barely containing her excitement at the news. "Rusty has been here for nearly eight hours now."

It took him a good pause of about five seconds while taking off his shoes to realise that she had christened the noise-measuring equipment after his friend without knowing that Rusty wasn't even a name in that sense. Choking back a splutter, he calmed his racing heart and managed to keep it together when she took his hand and led him to the results.

And loathe as some part of him was to admit it, Cagalli had been right. With some surprise, he noted how significant and excessive the noise levels were as Rusty's machine had measured those throughout the day.

"It is noisy." He admitted. "Much, much noisier than I thought it would be when you first described it."

"You see?" She said triumphantly, unfolding her arms and throwing her hands exasperatedly into the air. She had arrived home earlier today and was standing around in a ridiculous, shiny, oversized top in rainbow colours- a shirt that she probably had not worn to work. He glanced at her, his lips silently reading, "Screw Vintage- This Shirt Is From The Future!" but noted that her comfortable-looking shorts revealed a great deal of leg, which thankfully and also unfortunately distracted from the other psychedelic garment.

"This spike here," he tried to focus on the task at hand, jabbing at this particularly noticeable rise in the automatically plotted graph. "Did anything start to vibrate more than what I noticed the last time?"

He cringed at the possibilities of double entendre and wondered if he had truly been hanging around Dearka for too long. Stumbling a little, he tried to say, "I mean, did you feel anything different?"

"I don't know, I suppose so. Not that I was around at two in the afternoon, of course," Cagalli pointed out, coming a bit closer and peering over.

And her face fell. "I mean, if I wasn't around at two and I'm usually not around because I'm working somewhere else, I can't say that my use and enjoyment of this place has been affected, right?"

"That's selling it short," Athrun said, still making himself busy by taking all kinds of records of the measurements.

He considered the injunction that he was drafting for and frowned a bit, wondering how to justify the claim with just the results they'd gleaned so far. "I suppose we could always argue that this is a strict measure that the construction team hasn't followed because of whatever reason or schedule that they're being quite eager to roll out. But at the very least, some use and enjoyment has been affected. Besides, I'm sure you spend your weekend afternoons at home?"

"Yes, well," she said, already distracted with looking at the records that he set aside. "I don't really have all the weekends to myself, but I can't say that I like staying alone in here all the time. I take off with other people and stay elsewhere-sometimes."

His head jerked up- he could not have prevented it. So he pretended that he was checking the time on the clock at the side, despite having his watch.

Then she was saying, "That's the nice thing about this work," and "You get to travel on weekends although you're always on your toes".

"I understand what you mean," He said, with a flooding, ghastly relief that he should not have felt.

"Anyway, stick around for a bit," Cagalli declared, moving off to the kitchen. He took it as an invitation for dinner and found a smile wrestling its way onto his face. "The traffic's a killer now- you might as well eat a bit before you set off."

"Thanks." He called after her retreating back, half-wishing that he could see her expression.

She waved it off without turning around, proceeding to holler from the kitchen as she started getting things out. "Maybe we'll actually catch the construction getting crazy like the spike around two in the afternoon. If we keep here like this, we're bound to see what I'm talking about- maybe even worse. Who knows? Maybe you'll find it quite unbearable."

"I'm sure." Athrun said feebly.

* * *

On a Friday night, Athrun excused himself from an outing that Lunamaria Hawke had planned and looked forward to.

"But, but why?" She protested. Her lips were bright with sparkly lipstick and she looked devastating, hair slicked and mascara freshly-applied. "I mean, Dearka and Vino are definitely going and it's Armoury One! Everybody loves the cocktails at the club there! The music is banging, you know that, Athrun! You used to dance there!"

He pushed away the alarming thought of his paralegal and her camera following him around and focused on the more important thing to say. "That was one time and it was an accident. Some dare. I was- I was drunk."

"Yeah, he was fucking smashed." Dearka appeared from his cubicle and grinned widely, securing his cufflinks with an obvious ease that he usually hid while requesting the ladies to help with that.

"Your words, not mine." Athrun mumbled. "All the time."

"Come on," Dearka insisted, dropping his voice so that Lunamaria wouldn't hear. "It wasn't a disaster- I swear, you would have gotten laid if you didn't just drop into a dead-faint in the middle of your roll."

"Let's just put the past to rest." Athrun warned. "I thought you promised?"

"Okay, okay," Dearka took a step back, raising his hands in the air for a second like he was actually going to surrender. Then again, nothing could really deter Dearka except the implicit reminder of the multiple times when Athrun had saved his ass, something that Athrun used sparingly for a healthy friendship.

"Ooh, I see that your hands are in the air!"

Remaining as he was, like someone had pointed and invisible gun at him, Dearka beamed and started gyrating on the spot. Athrun kept his face blank, trying not to give in to the urge to laugh himself senseless at the unfolding nonsense on Friday nights.

"I think I'll just rest tonight," Athrun said again.

But Luna was barely listening, spinning around and obviously enjoying Dearka's easy-going match to their impromptu clubbing beat. "And you'll get to meet my sister too- you must know about her, everybody's heard of her these days!"

She raised her hand on her hip in consternation, the beading and sequins of her party dress shimmering suggestively and making Athrun wince because he did not wear sunglasses indoors. He had not noticed the tight-fitting dress because of the respectful blazer that she had donned until a few minutes ago, but now he wished that he knew how to explain and confess everything. He would have liked to sit them down and disclose that he was trying to finish a case that wasn't listed on Elsman & Reid's to-do list. He would have liked to ask them for advice on how to get Cagalli out of his life and system as soon as possible. But he could not, and he had concluded a few hours ago that the only way to was to run straight at the bull.

Tonight would be the last of it, he promised himself. Tonight, he would just finish the submissions and end those visits to her apartment where Rusty- the machine, not the man- recorded away and frighteningly good dinners and conversation followed.

"She's very pretty," Luna was saying. "She looks like me, everybody says, just not as smart. Anyway, she's up and coming and she's getting loads of attention these days."

"Maybe another time," Athrun said politely, wondering why Lunamaria thought that her sister would enjoy some job in the legal fraternity when Luna herself wasn't particularly fond of drafting or doing research either. Granted, Luna was a head-turner and did her work well enough, but Athrun was just hoping that she wasn't going to discover his extra work any time soon, what with all the extra files and books that he had taken from the firm's library collection these days.

He now imagined her sister to be a miniature version of her spunky self bouncing out of doors with documents and shouting "Something-or-the-Other Hawke, launching!" and felt himself grow a little cold with apprehension. "I think I'll just take a slow weekend for some rest."

"Come on, old man," Dearka insisted too, having undone three buttons and reloaded on his cologne. "If you don't want to party, then think of it as more work. I'm sure that appeals to you hey! Networking's got to be done and all. You know how Heine and his team will be there- as will loads of other lawyers and potential clients. I'm sure that settlement with Mia Campbell's going well in the meantime?"

"It's alright." Athrun backed away, his files securely packed into his suitcase. He smiled, trying not to hyperventilate as they crowded against him, gyrating and showing off all their party moves while looking at him meaningfully. "Just not this weekend, I'm afraid, but thanks."

"Has anyone seen my Mars Bars?" Vino's voice suddenly demanded, floating out threateningly from the pantry. "Don't you guys want a pre-party snack and drink before we go?"

The three of them froze and Athrun wondered why he just could not ever remember to replenish the supply of chocolate in the pantry's fridge on time.

"Quick, get out, get out!" Dearka ordered everyone, almost as if they were doing a fire drill. "Make it fast!"

* * *

On the next visit, they were both a bit earlier than they'd expected.

"Traffic was good," He explained, feeling a bit lame about his excuse.

"Work cleared fast," She agreed, looking ahead at something to keep her eyes from examining his expression. "Sometimes, it's like that on a Wednesday."

While Rusty continued recording as it had for the past week, she took him around to the adjoining parks and forest belt beyond the apartment. It was tranquil, the branches high above their heads into long arches, guiding into a vast space that only a few bicycle tracks had pushed through so far.

"Shame really," He noted about the increasingly irritating construction noise in the distance. "I can see how it would get to you."

"Or anyone." Cagalli corrected, cheekily alluding to his initial disbelief and theory that she had exaggerated about the noise being worse than what it was.

"Alright." He conceded, truly believing her by this point. "You were right."

"You bet."

They turned a corner and found themselves walking parallel with a small, gurgling stream. Children could have been here, skipping stones, gathering up their shorts and skirts and wading in, trying to fish for mollies and tadpoles with their inadequate pails, but he reckoned that the few tenants in the block of apartments did not really have children of that age. For that matter, children would not have played so close to the approaching line and onslaught of machines on this evening, even if they had wanted to.

With the drilling and hammering and booming construction that was fast-approaching, there was an undeniable disruption to the place and Athrun wished that he had enough ability and persuasion in all his skill, effort and words to have drafted a completely believable submission on the neighbourhood's character.

But in the deepest of hearts, he knew that it wasn't his lack of skill or effort- changes were inevitable for the grand scheme of things and the court would probably grant less than an injunction anyway. At the very least, he assured himself, there would be some compensation or remedy for the excessive noise in the area. Besides, that was all Cagalli was really concerned about- she was obviously not enamoured by the noise and vibrations, so Athrun would draft a submission and hope for a suitable remedy.

"You were right," Cagalli said abruptly. "You were helpful. Are helpful. Thank you."

"It's fine. I'm glad."

He picked up a stone, skipping it and then another because he suddenly didn't know what to do with his hands.

"Athrun?"

"Yes?"

"Why didn't you believe me at first, when I said that the noise wasn't the usual kind of thing that people should put up with?"

He straightened up, thinking about it and shrugged. "I think I was just a bit prejudiced- nobody really sues city councils or town planners any more. Maybe loads of people have been putting up with noise that's been going above the supposedly-permitted standards and not realising that they don't have to, but I didn't even think of it that way. I'm sorry."

Her gaze was very thoughtful. "And what made you try to help me prove that there was something wrong then?"

"I felt belittled," He said, after taking a deep breath. "I'd wanted to help because of Kira at first, but I hated how silly I looked to you during our first meeting. It sounds a bit funny now, but I suppose I wanted to change that."

They looked at each other, smiling a little.

Then she was moving on, heading towards the west where the noise didn't seem to be too far-reaching. He trailed after her, still holding one small stone in his hand, unable to put it down for a reason unknown to him.

"Kira liked it here," She mused, almost talking to herself when they came to a clearing. "Even though he never did stay here- not like I have."

He hesitated, but took the plunge anyway.

"How did you end up growing up apart?"

She looked up, her head turning jerkily as if to challenge his audacity, but she answered anyway.

It came out flat and toneless, but she didn't really hesitate. "The relationship just fell apart, I guess. I don't really know exactly what caused it, but he got unstable and they broke up their engagement even with my mother being pregnant then. And she probably couldn't afford to raise children on her own after she insisted on having them, but anyway she died in a hospital after being badly injured some accident- some bad fall at her workplace, I was told. Her sister couldn't afford to adopt both children and I was adopted by another family. Some acquaintance, I think. "

Her eyes suddenly refocused on his and she seemed almost startled at what she'd said.

In the horizon, the silhouette of massive cranes and construction equipment roared away, although moments of lull gave them a chance to speak and be heard. But the forest cover was fairly thick and today's noise wasn't as bad as it might have been.

The clouds weren't really visible through the trees, but the light was already beginning to fade and Athrun felt a sudden sense of loss.

When he turned, he saw that Cagalli had tilted her face to the clearing's light. Quietly, she said, "I've checked, but they told me that this part of the place doesn't belong to anybody, so it's technically the city council's."

"It's lovely," He said honestly. "I wish that my place was as quiet and serene as this- well, before this."

She glanced at him, as if surprised by his earnestness and willingness to admit that. And then Cagalli chuckled. "I take it that you live in the main city ring?"

"Second ring," He told her. He wracked his brains, trying to describe it, but there were words that would have described everything and nothing and insufficient aspects to differentiate the space from any other grey little place in the district. "It's near the office. It's just rental though."

"How long have you been there?" she inquired, forcing him to rack his mind to remember when he had even moved to Heliopolis and tried to call it home.

He shut his eyes momentarily, remembering the strange flashes of the dingy light in the hallway and the scruffing sound of his shoes against the carpet. There had been the boxes like hers in the storeroom, but he hadn't done much except pack and repack and pack all over again. There hadn't been much to think or feel about it in the end.

Now that she had started to question him, he didn't know how to shift the topic away, but suddenly, he didn't mind and answered without giving too much thought as to the possible repercussions of sharing anything about himself.

"Since I was sixteen, I think."

"Do you like Heliopolis?"

"It's alright," He said, not even sure what to say about it. He hadn't really thought much about liking a place or thinking of his apartment as a landing pad of sorts for sleep and general security, but it occurred to him that most people would have wondered about those kinds of things. "It's safe, my life is quite comfortable and there are enough things to do."

"True," She said softly. "I guess it's not bad, still."

He compared her home to his in his mind and was suddenly puzzled that she could pronounce a place that she hadn't seen as something good enough. "How so?"

"Well, it's convenient enough and you're not tied to a place that you can't bear to give up." She did not meet his eyes even if they sought hers out.

"Do you feel tied to this place?"

"Sometimes." It was as much as she could admit, the cranes beginning to pound back into action and the rustling of trees accompanying some complaining birds in the approaching evening.

As they moved through some of the more beaten paths, Cagalli glanced at him.

"Doesn't it ever get tiring?" She said curiously. "I mean, you seem to use the same old templates and you deal with the same people a lot. Still, you have to prepare quite a bit before you even make an appearance in court, don't you?"

"Rehearsed steps on an empty stage." He admitted. "Sometimes convention is better- new legal developments and novel case-types mean you don't have anything to refer to or fall back on, so it's even tougher at points. And it's not as staid as I've made it sound- not this case. Then again, we deal with new demands every day that take us out of familiar territory and force us to think hard and for unconventional arguments. It gets stranger and stranger."

A small smile moved over her lips and he was reminded of a stray thread on some jersey- he had been tempted to yank it off between his fingers then. But with her, it was something else.

"Strange, like this?"

"Strange." He agreed.

Then she blinked and he dropped his gaze too. Beyond them, the harsh cries of the wild birds seemed to override the crashing and stirring of concrete for one improbable, fleeting moment and then she was turning away and moving in the reverse direction from which they'd come. In an instant, the sounds that he had been so sure of faded into waves of humdrum and the pounding started again.

* * *

She was always going to be the strangest, most passionate, contradictory and satisfyingly difficult person that he would ever meet.

And with that growing, thumping knowledge in him by his seventh visit over two weeks, Athrun felt himself nodding occasionally as careful listeners were supposed to if he had been actually listening, staring only long enough before it got weird and periodically remembering to swallow his over-chewed mouthfuls of mutton, potatoes and watercress soup.

She had been withheld and cool at first and he realised this to be a habit that plagued her at mealtimes as it did for most hours of his every day. But then twenty minutes passed and he found that he had successfully made her talk and laugh and roll her eyes and gesticulate about people, cars, the public light rail that she took home and the idiots on the road that scared her off driving. He noted that he had certainly made progress there.

With passing time and digestion, she raved and ranted about some work that could not get done without somebody having to get serious, then dismissed his cautious praise about the cooking skills that she had picked up from backpacking and camping out in deserts at some point after high school.

"Wasn't the most important thing that I learned during that gap year," She said dismissively, stabbing some potato quite viciously.

When she insisted that he share about some of the more interesting cases that he had encountered as a student and trainee lawyer, he eventually obliged. He omitted names and dates and when he thought it necessary, the exact chronology of events and discoveries. But then he found that he could talk quite easily to her, his words flowing as if he had been forced to stand up in court to advocate on some matter, those years of practice adding nothing to the exact moment of will and kismet as he narrated.

"I mean, this guy filed for divorce because his pastor advised him to, but then he caught his then-wife in bed with the pastor right after we appeared in court for the hearing."

"Bloody hell," She shook her head in wonder. "I mean, wow. Bloody hell."

"I bet the client prayed for that to really exist." He muttered.

She quirked her mouth. "And what did you think?"

"It was shocking," He said, actually revealing his own opinion and finding it rather exhilarating that she wanted to know anything about him in that sense. "It was the pits."

Then she was asking about whether his previous client had ended up divorcing or not and what would have been worse for the then-wife. They were talking and talking and here and there, there were things that he had only recently put behind him suddenly on the tip of his tongue and he was holding back, fighting something, fighting an urge to ask her how much Kira really knew about this whole business. He wanted to know, but then he didn't. He would probably have assured her that there was no conflict of interest, but then he didn't ask her whether she really knew about the construction company. It was troubling, considering whether she would mind him representing her if she knew who Patrick Zala was and who Patrick Zala was to him.

He wasn't being clever. He wasn't even being prudent- he should have been and disclosed that kind of information, the more that he thought about it and made inquiries as to the subsidiary company's shadow directors and board meetings. But he thought it was just being too cautious and it was so satisfying to speak to her, her face and voice warm as she bantered and made a few jabs and laughed at what she thought was his stunned disbelief when it was something a little different.

On this Friday evening, he vaguely noticed that a whole hour and fifteen minutes had passed since they'd finished with the final recordings and started dinner, but he did not comment on the needlessness of his hanging around when she got more soup for them. Instead, he heard himself laughing idiotically at every slightly funny thing that she flitted over or added to his retellings, hoping that she was treating this evening as a minor celebration rather than the final session of noise-recordings.

Still, he thought of himself as bland and he was somewhat insecure about topics that probably would not have interested, but Cagalli was fascinated and amazed, openly repulsed by lawyers and grudgingly appreciative at the same time when he made her admit it, skirting over his unspoken 'why' with the ease of one who had made a habit of not justifying her actions to anybody for a long time.

"You must have some pretty tough guts though," She said reluctantly. "Standing up to talk on someone's behalf like that. I'd get stage fright- does it count as stage fright?"

"Close enough." He'd grinned.

He thought it was ironic that he had entered her apartment while assuring himself that it would be filled with clippings of this or that politician with some cause to support or some poster declaring a boycott on this trade organisation or that business association. Even as he had first stood outside her apartment, wondering why his life had taken a turn for an unintended swing, he had wanted her to be one of those women who insisted on individuality at absurd and even comical costs, who thought that being contrary was alluring and most ironically enough, became mostly identical to the next woman.

But she was so assured in her space that she did not have to try to send a message with it and her identity within its context. He was aware and relieved but also disappointed that she was quite personal while assuming his professionalism, that she was similarly insensitive to any possible implications of his presence and completely naive to the buzzing refrain of half-formed suggestions in his annoyed, energetic mind.

"What, what?" She said in consternation at some point when she caught him staring. "Do I have watercress stuck in my teeth? God, I knew I shouldn't have tried to finish those veggies by dumping them in the soup this week- hold on, hold on."

She ran off to the bathroom before Athrun had a chance to blither some excuse about zoning out with a long day because for the love of dignity and the professional-ethical guidelines for lawyers, he would not say that he'd been staring at her chapped bottom lip that some lucky sod had probably almost eaten while engaging her in the slobbering genus of kisses.

"Nothing, phew!" Cagalli pronounced, running back after a minute, thankfully not noticing the fading marks of Athrun's palm against his face.

And she continued rattling on about the one time she'd brought Kira back to her apartment before they'd been told that they were related, "thank goodness nothing happened, but guess who turned up in the tightest tank top the next day and demanded to know why I was hanging around Kira?" and how he'd once slapped her for making some hot-headed remark, but he had been together with Fllay then, "-of course the idiot was acting like a jerk. Don't worry, I didn't take it personally- once I had my revenge."

Then white wine and some beers were brought out at some point with her sheepish confession that she was enjoying herself when he asked her how her evening was going- after he casually laid out Mars Bars on the dinner mats.

"Every visit, right?" She said suddenly. "You know that I like them."

"That's why I bring them." He told her, suddenly realising that they had become close enough for them to speak like this. "You're providing most of the dinner, so I figured that I might as well."

She laughed. "They'll make me fat."

"Of course they will." He said, quite straight-faced.

She was already munching on one. "Too sodding good to miss though- quick, take one before I vacuum them out of existence."

They were quite aware that they were far from tipsy, but somehow he was laughing stupidly at something that she had pointed out and they kept trying to summarise what he had said about noting down the noise measurements religiously and taking photographic and video records of those.

But then they kept digressing and she was too excited in her animation when he made her talk about some of the more memorable incidents at work and she declared that so-and-so had wobbled like she was on a bad mushroom trip.

She knocked over the pepper while demonstrating so-and-so's catwalk in the moment when so-and-so had sprained her foot on 'a five-inch monstrosity'. Then they were both sneezing uncontrollably, trying not to get anything over the food and he tried to get up to fetch napkins and upset the salt all over her hand and was saying, "Shit, shit, shit". But there were tears in her eyes because she could not- would not- stop laughing, and she was telling him that it was okay and making him sit down, because there was ice cream somewhere and she was going to get it for them.

"Chubby Hubby, okay?"

"Sounds good," He said, quite relieved that she wasn't too bothered about their collective clumsiness.

Then when they had sorted it out a bit and calmed down a little, they were laughing all over again and talking about all kinds of dangerous things- about her hobbies and the way she could spend hours on a beach lazing around and not doing anything, about his trouble with a postman who kept sending him letters that didn't belong to him and all the stupid, funny little things that made him quite sure that he wasn't suppose to enjoy himself with her this much.

"Actually," He said at some point, "I think we'd better review our findings again."

"Sure," She said, although her eyebrows had shot up because his shift away from her questions about his days in university seemed obvious even to him. "If we have to."

"We have to."

But then she didn't know that he was nervous, that he didn't want to talk about those personal things even while finding out about her life. She didn't know that he was getting edgy about the time passing so easily and feeling lost about the way he didn't want to get up and leave, stretching her courtesy and hospitality for all it was worth.

And there was the case cropping up and interrupting everything that he was trying to veer away from again, simply because it was the only thing that he could have hoped to sound sane and focused about. He already knew that he should have left it alone, but he didn't dare to speak of or listen to anything else and chose to throw aside all the other conversations of far greater interest- interest that was disappointingly unprofessional.

"But you're just tweaking the submissions, right?" She asked.

He hadn't really wanted to go into the technicalities with her, but it was the only thing that he could speak of now.

"I was thinking that a wide injunction's not in our favour, even if a partial one is quite achievable to my mind."

While he spoke and laid down the next few steps to carry out, she started concentrating in earnest, becoming regretfully quiet and still and even brusque at moments. But he went on with it; it was all for the best that they spoke of nothing but the case, because it was the only way he could hope to not talk about himself or listen to anything about her. It was the one thing that they could talk about without really going into anything too funny or good or lovely and that way, Athrun felt a bit better about staring at the swell of her breasts beneath the cotton shirt that she'd changed into after he'd properly seasoned her blouse's right sleeve.

"It's not widely drafted or onerous at all," she was saying. "They need to stop their work, it's simple."

"No," he told her, despairing suddenly at what he wanted to say but couldn't to her. "No, it's not."

To avoid the scenario of suddenly spewing out his true sentiments, he began to speak quickly and hurriedly of what he'd planned while she grew stiffer with gradual disagreement and tried to deflect some of his arguments.

Suddenly, he found that the more they spoke, the more impassioned he found himself getting, and then he realised that he was actually arguing all over again with her. Trying to remain on track with the whole point of this exercise, Athrun started reviewing the case all over again.

"We've done this, this, this so far," he ticked off a list that they had laid on the table and mostly forgotten about until just only. "Now we're at this stage and we need to decide what to ask for in court."

"Right," Cagalli said, looking down at it and then a bit curiously at him, as if trying to read him. It was his cue to hurry on.

But just when they were agreeing and agreeing and ticking things off the list and agreeing again and moving on, he found that they were suddenly stuck in completely different directions while discussing the submission regarding the injunction.

"Wait, what, I don't understand!" She was saying. "Why are you only asking that the construction stop by a certain time each day, five days a week?"

"Because that's all you need to get to enjoy your peace and quiet!"

He found that he was arguing with her again and asking why she even cared so much about the surrounding forest being left alone in the first place when it was just general nuisance that could be stopped quite easily.

"You know what I would do if I represented the company?" He said, sounding rougher than he had intended because he'd strained to tear his eyes away from the bead of sweat at the hollow of her neck. "I'd write you a cheque with a bit of the money that I'd set aside in preparation of nuisance costs."

"Nuisance costs?" She'd sputtered, quite insulted. "They're the nuisance, not me!"

Because she still didn't get it, he threw up his hands. "No, you're the nuisance to m-them!"

She seemed stung by what he had just told her, but she seemed to grow more determined. "I want that injunction- we've been collecting all that evidence! I thought we were done about that, Athrun, I thought we were going to fight for that."

"That's what I'm saying," he insisted, half-aware that he wasn't really saying what he wanted to say to her. "I'm saying that even with such favourable measurements, if we're going to ask for an injunction, we can't ask for such a wide one which extends to them stopping work completely! You marched into that cafe the first time I met you and said you just wanted them to stop- I thought this was about the noise! Remember what you said about flaccid jelly?"

"Yes, well, that's true, right? You've seen it for yourself and now we have that noise-measuring machine to really prove it!"

"Even if that's true and above what's acceptable of authorised noise standards, you can't draft a submission for an injunction that's a full cease-work order, that's excessive."

"No, I can't draft it, but you can, you're the lawyer!"

She had argued vigorously about things that she didn't agree with before, but now she grew sullen and angry and through his haze of reasoning and longing, he knew that he was too worked up about hitting a wall and disagreeing with her when things had gone on quite well before that.

But it wasn't his fault, he thought despairingly, not when he'd been trying to veer away from that awful, growing pit of attraction towards her. It wasn't his fault, not with how studiously he'd made himself talk about the case instead of indulging in the easy way out and letting her share about the crazy stuff that she had been apparently up to while travelling. Granted, he shouldn't have stopped by her apartment on this evening again, but she'd let him in without a word and proceeded to talk about everything else apart from measurements and made him enjoy dinner so much too. How could it be his problem, when he had struggled so hard to force himself away from topics about her personal life and back on track with why he was even supposed to be here at all?

"It's not necessary for such a wide injunction," Athrun said, actually not even really thinking about anything besides how vibrant the orange and cyan painted tile behind her head was and how she seemed to move and burn within its perimeter. "I can simply draft it as a submission requesting that the court restrict the working hours of the construction. Six in the evening seems reasonable- we're trying to look reasonable and be responsible here. That way, we'll get what we're asking for."

"But they've begun on the forest," she shot back, brushing her fringe impatiently out of her eyes. She took a swig of her drink, looking at him but not really. "I don't want that. That's why I need an injunction! You get it, right- you get what's going on?"

"No," he said honestly, although it struck him that he was referring to many other things. "Why do you just want the forest to be left alone? You don't own it, like you told me! Nobody does, which means the city council can grant permits for construction."

"The injunction has to be wide," she said stubbornly. "To get them to stop working through that forest."

"No," he said, realising that he was not following her at all. "They just need to stop working and creating the noise by a certain time each day."

"No, I want them to stop work!" She was actually close to yelling, jumping out of her seat now. For one heart-stopping second, he prayed that she wasn't drunk, because he certainly wasn't and would not allow himself to be. "Stopping work means that the forest remains and the noise stops! An injunction gets them to stop the work- gets the forest to remain and the noise to stop!"

Then he was truly aware of her staring at him, eyes huge and mouth gulping once. And a sob strangled its way from between her lips and she turned away, suddenly breathless.

"That's crazy!" He was rearing back in his seat, no longer looking at how dark her eyes had become with a rim of brown around amber, now distracted by what she was actually saying. "Wasn't this always about the cracks or the noise? Are you actually saying- saying that you're actually just interested in making them stop work?"

She was silent for a few deafening moments, but she had still gone very pink in the cheeks. Then she mustered something that resembled a final push of strength and turned back to him, startling him into focus with the intensity of her gaze and voice.

"Yes!"

"Then why didn't you say so?" he'd exclaimed, realising too late that he was raising his voice to this extent. Not that Athrun was shouting, of course, but nothing was making sense, not with that annoying, tiny dab of vanilla on her chin - why couldn't she be less slovenly about how she ate and why was he being such an awful, unfocused idiot?

She sank back in her chair, her sudden outburst silenced now. Her shoulders were still rising and falling in her rage, but even in his bewilderment and this new information, Athrun had only just started.

"I thought that you were just upset about the noise- I thought you just wanted the noise to stop! Look, why do you even want an injunction so badly?"

She didn't answer and he threw up his hands again.

"Just because it sounds fancy?"

When that didn't goad any answer from her, he carried on in consternation. "Listen, if the construction team just agrees to stop at six in the evening, you wouldn't have to get home and have your enjoyment of your property too badly interfered with. Why not settle for that? Why get concerned about this surrounding forest now when you don't even have title to that?"

"It's enough," she whispered. "Maybe you've helped enough."

It was the last thing that he wanted to hear, not when he had even embarked on talking about this case during a dinner that he had enjoyed so much just to avoid her actually chasing him out.

In frustration, he began to shake his head. "I want to help, I do, it's just that I'm thinking on a different plane from you. I thought that we were- we were on the same page- I don't know what you're really trying to get at now. I mean, why?"

He got up, not even noticing that he was pacing. It was too much now, this evening. Suddenly, he had no idea what he was talking about or why he even bothered talking about a case that was doing fairly well with already-prepared arguments. For that matter, he wasn't even sure why he had already crafted those out for a client who wasn't even paying. Then again, he was really sure that he wanted to kiss her now; that despite all his better sense and the obvious, right thing to do, he wanted to put his arms around and hands against her and learn and know everything and hear that it was the same for her.

He blinked once- in his confusion, he had found clarity, but then he was only back at the same old questions- the when, the why and the how the fuck could this happen to me.

"Because it's part of a place that my father left me." She said suddenly, still not looking at him. "Because I don't have any claim to the forested areas, but it's part of the place that I need to hold on to have any real trace of him. Because I didn't inherit much but this apartment, but I'm going to fight everything I have to hold onto a place beyond these walls. Because I don't want anything about this whole place to change, even if everything and everyone that lived in it has. Nobody was to know- I wanted to do this on my own."

And suddenly, every piece was falling into place.

Rusty's voice had ceased long ago with the recording, but Athrun thought he heard a ghostly reminder, "Takes a madman to take work from a madwoman."

"Father complex." She mumbled, trying to laugh and forget everything with a joke.

But he'd heard her. She wouldn't even have had to say it for him to know it now.

"I think I understand." He said in a low voice, not even realising how much he truly meant by it.

"No, you don't actually," Her voice cracked and became tinier. "But I told you and Kira that I'd do this alone- right from the start. I always knew that I'd have to."

Without knowing that he was or how long he'd wanted to, he came to her side of the table and understood that she was holding back everything that she possibly could.

When he spoke, it seemed that his voice was his own. "You should have said so earlier."

"D-Don't be daft- why should I have you laugh at me?"

Still asking how he had ended up here and in this mess of things with a clear way forward and no way back, he lifted her chin, not hesitant or aware of anything beyond the crumpled, beaten figure in her chair and then he was stooping, wrestling her into a hug, pressing her tightly, hearing her intake of air.

"You're sure that I despise you." Athrun looked at her without any of his usual humour or wryness. Some friends had once told him that those were his defense for most things, but he had spent too much to have any of that left now. "You really think that I despise you, Cagalli."

There was something in his voice that made her raise her head and look directly into his eyes. She stared wordlessly, somehow bullied into a corner, angry and uncomfortable, unable to speak and nearly unable to breathe. She was barely aware of the clock ticking in the corner or the way the equipment continued humming at the side.

"Yes." She said finally. "I despised you, you see."

For an unbearable moment, neither of them moved. But she found him leaning towards her again, gaze directly on hers and he brought his hand to her cheek and ran his fingers to her chin, curving to the corner of her mouth.

In the end, she was the one who brought her mouth to his, but he did not wait for confirmation- for one awful, heart-pounding second, he wondered if he had called her out or claimed an unfair debt too quickly. But then they were kissing, tentative and almost tender, seeking, then urgently exploring, eyes shut in that moment of recklessness, that awkward half-squat, half-stoop of his over her, her body frozen in the chair but arms winding surely around his shoulders and neck. When they paused, he looked at her, not speaking nor smiling, something in his face demanding and compelling as she had never realized.

"Yes." She said again.

As he pulled her determinedly to her feet and held one shaking, gripping hand in his, he only paused to nudge the tireless little machine back into silence. Then he was leading her back into the living room and onto the couch and she found that her legs were as staggery as when she had first tried to fight him.


	8. She got her nails in your heart

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of GS/GSD. R&R please.**

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A/N: And here we are again! Please review whether you like or don't like this, I'd really love to hear your feedback. And many thanks to those who reviewed the last chapter and sent PMs, you have no idea how much I appreciate it!

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_"Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before."_

_-Mae West_

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**Chapter 8: She got her nails in your heart**

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They had sat there on the couch, dinner abandoned, machines finally silent, the clock ticking quietly in the corner. They had forgotten how to tiptoe around each other then, his kisses tapering away as he wiped away the tears building in her eyes and asked her the questions that she had never let anybody ask before. And in kind, she had told him of things that haunted her—of a space and legacy that her father had left behind.

And he had listened without saying anything as the pain and fears had been unfolded through her words. He had hugged her and listened to her speak despite her years of self-sufficiency and desperate independence and silence. She had put her cheek against his chest, the couch sagging low from the combined weight of them. And she had talked— she had spoken about the years spent on the islands owned by Orb, those compartments of luxury stacking against the sky, threads in the tapestry of glitzy buildings with the Lion and hibiscus logo on everything from a notepad to the glassy facades and giant screens.

For years, she had assumed others' childhoods entailed endless nights of fireworks and breezy living, the women dressed in shimmering frocks, the men genteel and talking of business only in the rooms with the pool tables, some distant quartet marking the hours with music.

There had been the conglomerate that Uzumi Nara Atha inherited and headed, the entity that seemed alive with its physical presence on a chain of tropical islands near Earth Alliance territory and with subsidiaries on Heliopolis, Coppernicus and other space colonies.

It had started off as a tiny printing business in the old days, but the years of tradition, iron-handed corporate governance and eventual handing over to privileged board members had created a publishing juggernaut. By the time her father had held the keys to the conglomerate, his forefathers and parents had already built up a vast entity.

She hadn't known much about the business or the running of it—the many businesses attached to the Orb name had only formed a canvas for the tales and exciting stories of mergers and takeovers and strategic business-making over dinner tables and conferences that she peeked into as a child. For years, Uzumi Nara Atha had sheltered her and sent her to study abroad, leaving her to learn about the Orb business only if she cared to.

He had been a busy man and she had no more than a few hours with him each weekend, but she assumed that it was perfectly normal. Besides, she had been allowed to believe things about Orb and its businesses when her father, his subordinates and the family friends around her held it out as a corporation with conscience. Responsible enterprise, her father had always said, was the hallmark of his work. Many were employed— Orb had provided employee housing and micro-loans and its own insurance schemes and made its little universe that people relied on for service and livelihoods.

There had once been a grand house in Heliopolis amidst unbroken chains of scenery and a plenteous river— her father had named the river after her as their private joke and she had lived there for some time before she turned twelve and was sent off to new schools. There had once been a ten-year old, tearing and racing as fast as her tiny legs could carry her, running and getting into all sorts of scrapes and laughing with a man who had little time for her but loved her all the same. There had been the years of her returning home only during those alternate summers to visit those tropical islands, never knowing that in Heliopolis and a dozen other places, there were people cursing her father.

For a long time, she had not known that even an entity like Orb could not entirely withstand the downturns and competition arising from the Plants—it was never discussed and there were never any reports because of the accounting tricks and flattering media. And there had been Yuuna Roma Seiran, a few years her senior and fresh out of a top university then, an old childhood playmate and son of a board member whom her father had been indulgent towards. Yuuna had been an almost-constant presence in her childhood— she had been instinctively wary of him despite his flattering words and ways, quite undecided of what his role in her life was to be. He had visited her regularly when she was overseas, but he had always hinted and taunted her over things that she could not understand then, since she knew nothing of the façade that she assumed to be her world.

And then there had been a day when she had been taunted a bit too much. There had been a day when she was about sixteen and known how to act on her suspicion. Then she had gone off from the tropical island and visited Heliopolis during that summer vacation without her father's knowledge because of Yuuna's taunts and the increasingly credible rumours that she had heard. There had been the day when she'd seen for herself that the offices and factories and enterprise zones bore a different look to them than in her memory—the day when she'd realized that significant portions of the Orb enterprise were being sold away with employees being laid off.

There had been the one confrontation with her father and her anger at being fooled for so many years. With the plights of the sacked employees and the newly-felt scorn of their children who had grown up on the same islands as she had, she understood that their lives had taken a turn for the worse. While they had fought to keep their jobs as business after business had been sold off with their work pensions apparently no more than basic funds, she had been sent to those expensive finishing schools and taken holidays. Her years had been paid for with money that she suddenly had to question the source of.

And she had been suddenly unable to answer the new questions that came from everywhere. Frightened, miserable and disgusted, she had left on the first possible opportunity to travel in the Earth Alliance territories. With a name that eventually became an identity that she preferred, she had wanted to truly learn. She had striven to be removed of the privileges that she felt she didn't deserve when the money was dirty— how could Orb's loans with temptingly high returns and little actual security be anything but dirty in her eyes? But in the end, she had been just another rich, little girl, running away on the first ship with a ticket that others had paid for.

Even after she felt equipped and ready to return, she had not been fully welcomed back at the islands. Even while her father's sudden funeral had come and gone with neither fanfare nor her attendance, she had been in a private shuttle, his advisors telling her that it was in accordance with his wishes. And she had cried and begged for things to be different.

The debtors had come knocking even before her father's will had been read and the executors visited—there had been a few dozen partnerships gone awry and bills. So she had paid with everything that had been left. She had handed over the last of the core businesses to the Seirans, family friends who had worked for her father and for Orb and had assured her that as trustees, they could manage the business better than she ever would. And through it all, there had been the advice and blessing of a team of the top legal advisors who had been quietly bought by the board members whom Uzumi Nara Atha had trusted to give the 'right kind of advice'. In her haste to clear the debts and her father's name, she assigned over everything that had been left for her— only to realise that she had actually made a gift out of Orb rather than keep it in trust.

Of course, there had been enough people to suspect and enough people to try to help her expose the fraud. There had been her old bodyguard and one of the semi-retired personal assistants to her father. There had been the old housekeeper who had testified that there was simply no possibility for an eighteen-year old girl to have wanted to sell the last of her father's legacy. At the core of the claim, there had been an eighteen-year old girl, desperate to prove that she had been tricked, ashamed of her weakness and despairing at the years before her.

But the Seirans argued that there was simply no proof that the lawyer hired for Uzumi Nara Atha's inheritor was giving fraudulent advice. This was an educated, clever girl, they had argued. That had been the lawyer, in all those urgent circumstances, acting in good faith and discharging all his duties by telling the girl that it was the fastest way to clear the debts. Indeed, she had signed a letter stating that she had been independently advised and understood what was required. The girl's claim had not even made it to trial and nothing had come from it.

In any case, the debts were cleared and there was a fresh slate waiting for her. But in the days that followed, she learnt that she could not choose to forget Orb or for that matter, the single unit within the block of apartments that was left. But she had to bide her time and wait for an opening , because the Seirans were trying to find her and convince her to return to the tropical islands— there were still some shares that were in her name for some businesses. They hadn't been contented with owning the substantial majority of Orb—they believed that they could convince her to return and to sell those over.

But with what she had left and the few friends that she kept close to her, she finished college, turned down a few job offers in Coppernicus and spent a few years learning what she needed to within the Earth Alliance before returning to Heliopolis. She had learnt of her twin brother through the final moments with her father as he lay on a hospital bed, feverish and weak from prolonged liver illness, but that strange combination of pride and shame had prevented her from asking directly for Kira Yamato's help.

Eventually, there came a day when she re-visited an old area in Coppernicus to see that there were just the forests, some simple streams and a new block of apartments on the same land that she almost failed to recognise.

This time, nobody in Coppernicus quite recognized her, save for Erica Simmons, the same woman who had once worked directly for her father. Erica Simmons had been looking after a single unit in the new block of apartments—she had been the person to offer her a job. And that had been three years ago, when one Cagalli Yula had started work as one of hundreds of employees in a publication called _Dawn's Carriage, _now owned by a conglomerate that had once belonged to her father.

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As she checked her watch and registered that it was just around two on a Saturday morning, Mirallia Haww decided that it was about time for her to leave. Strobe lights and club beats were not her thing in general, but work had been a pain recently and she had ended up with all the corporate, yuppie-types at one of Armoury One's renowned Friday night-parties.

Not that she hadn't become one of those too, she reflected glumly. But she had grown to love her work, and this was unfortunately the kind of lifestyle that went along with it. Her parents weren't all that into fashion-photography, insisting to themselves and whoever who would listen that Milly would eventually get back to serious reporting-what they deemed more respectable than capturing people and clothes on camera.

Milly herself was on a daily quest to convince herself that shooting for _Dawn_ was just temporary assignment that she'd taken to learn the ropes and get to know the right people. Four years, three promotions and about a dozen personal recommendation letters from some of the best people in the industry later, Milly was still working in _Dawn_.

In the meantime, she yawned openly and cast her eyes over the scene with much disinterest. The insiders had a nickname for these parties- Friday Flings. The mambo line was coiled, intestine-like, pulsing and noisily working through the space under dim lights and head-pounding rhythms. People came together, moved apart, found new matches and went home in cars that they hadn't arrived in- the whole works. People had fun here, but the cynic in Milly often thought that people with money had fun anywhere in the world.

"Oh my God, Milly, you can't just sit there, come with us!"

"No, you lot can go, I'm tired. I'm just going to have a drink and then I'll head back." She failed to mention that her feet were giving her hell and that Tolle was probably losing interest in her these days, because nobody would have really sympathised.

"What? No way! Everything alright?"

"Never been better." She mustered a smile and ambled off, sure that her colleagues would not follow despite their current insistence.

Armoury One was that sort of place which had absolutely nothing mention-worthy on the menu for food. What it did have however, was a dizzying array of brandies and cognac and endless flavours with every range of whiskey, tequila, vodka, beers. There were no menus or lists in Armoury One— one just had to name the booze of one's choice or imagination and it was served. To its credit, it even had the right ingredients for a Shirley Temple or two, but that had been last asked for about three years ago.

Sitting on her high-topped chair at the drinks bar, back facing the expansive but extremely crowded dance floor, Milly had been happy to be alone and to give her aching feet some rest. The earlier part of the night had been spent meeting some people from other magazines and now that they had exchanged business cards, she considered her job about done.

Unfortunately, the VIP booth for the business meeting had been immediately booked by some other patrons and she had been forced to sit here at one of the curved bars, mulling about her life and the disappointments of a long-distance relationship and her inability to move out of the _Dawn_ foray.

It wasn't supposed to be so difficult. Tolle had been her first love through high school and they had been overjoyed when they made it to the same prestigious university and eventually graduated together. She had been freshly-armed and quite optimistic, having swotted to obtain a first-class arts degree and side-diploma for photography. Tolle being Tolle had seemingly breezed through his engineering programmes and had been as confident as her about finding their ideal jobs and their future together. With their combined salaries back then, rent in a tiny apartment had been paid and they had brought home enough to be fairly well-off.

At least, that was supposed to be how it was, except that Tolle had gone off on long work assignments as a race-car team engineer and she had taken up the job at a fashion magazine which required her to stay right put in Heliopolis. She had wanted to work in reporting and to her immense dismay, found no openings for a fresh graduate like her. Rejection letter after rejection letter had been put into the mailbox, along with bills and property advertisements, and through it all, Tolle had kept assuring her that she would eventually find something that she liked.

Then he had wanted her to follow him to Coppernicus because the company that he worked wanted him in a more permanent position—she had found work in Heliopolis by then. He flew back and forth even while she began to get recommendations and all sorts of minor promotions that weren't supposed to have added up to anything much. But those had and she began to enjoy her work and becoming an artistic director with longer and longer hours and forgetting her own birthday and his dates and suddenly, Tolle was proposing that he move out of the apartment.

They had argued heatedly over the phone the last time they had talked and Milly hadn't really spoken to him after that. She had wondered if there was another girl in his life, but she was too busy to really find out and that really, was proof that they were both moving on from something that hadn't even really ended. But she had stopped trying to find work outside _Dawn _and he had sent for some of his things to be brought to Coppernicus. Half a year ago, he had already stopped sending her pictures of his work and her attempts to reach him were feeling feebler each time. Even her parents had stopped asking about when they were planning to get engaged.

Really, she thought briefly, it was getting a bit pathetic.

Despite her being free to go off, she didn't particularly want to go home and thus sat in a corner, eyeing some olives and cocktail sausages morosely. Entertaining was not her cup of tea—or glass of beer, as this was more accurately the case—but this provided some distraction at times. Next to her, some poor man was slumped across the bar top, his cognac barely finished. But the bouncers had mercifully cast their eyes elsewhere- a snoozing customer wasn't the intolerable, even if too many was bad for the club's image.

The colleagues who had come in with her had already dissipated into the crowds. And as far as Milly was concerned, the musical chairs game between the clubbers on the dance floor, rare seats and smoking areas outside would not include her.

* * *

The machines had not begun their work yet, but it would take a while more for her breathing to slow down.

"Are you awake?" whispered Athrun. His fingers twitched a little, then moved to caress her neck and she turned her face to look directly at him, realizing that he had been listening and waiting for her to fall asleep.

Delightfully, he brought her nearer, tucking the sheets carefully around them. Cautiously and almost shyly, he hesitated as his fingers moved back to her neck and tentatively stroked a stray lock of hair away— as if he'd suddenly realized how close he was.

And she smiled, closing her eyes in wonder at how new everything felt. "I couldn't sleep."

She should have been able to— she was exhausted, having poured out all the years' worth of troubles and memories that she hadn't even explained fully to her twin and closest friends. But there she lay, thinking and remembering even after the welcome distraction of his lips on hers, responding to her initiation and her want of his arms around her.

Even after they'd ended up in her bedroom, he hadn't been satisfied to simply fall asleep and to leave her alone with her thoughts. In the early hours of the morning, he had asked questions still and she told him of how her father had often held her and told her of all the grand plans that he and his advisors and the board members had for Orb. Eyes closed, head deep against the pillows, she spoke of the privileges throughout her teenage years—she had been sent abroad to expensive private schools, never knowing or worrying about where the money had come from and how the debts had risen behind the whitewashed office walls.

It seemed unimaginable for her to have spoken of such things in their entirety to a semi-stranger—a man she knew next to nothing about. At the very least, she considered with some humour, even second-class shrinks would have required some remuneration. But perhaps, she had paid in some way after all. She had been the one to provide answers, to let him ask when he didn't understand. She shouldn't have been lying there, feeling quite as relaxed, accepting and wonderfully sated as she did. But she did and she had wanted this warmth, this intimacy and this contact. Even if she had always been aware that indulging in anything like this was a form of distraction or even betrayal to her goals, it didn't feel anything less than natural.

More than once, she glanced at the bedroom's door and wondered why her walk of shame had to be in this house. This was why she had never brought anybody home—she would have preferred it to have been in another place. Had this possibly been in his apartment, she could have left much earlier and just forgotten about the whole thing. She had not planned on having him over like this—had not planned on so many things even after deciding a long time ago that she was in control and that she would remain so. But he had come into her life and now she had given him access to her memories, body and mind. It was terrifying, humbling, even.

As they lay on their backs, listening to their breathing slowing and tempering down, she contemplated the possibilities of laughing it off. It would be quite simple, she supposed, and she was certain that he would be most open to the option of getting dressed and leaving—possibly even calling it quits with the whole case now that he knew of her insensible motivations and what she was planning to do to regain what she could. Short of that, the very spontaneity of their encounter would have provided them an exit route, the combination of white wine and beers a possible excuse. But above all, her unwillingness to be held accountable to any more made her determined to be quite practical. As she had discovered from an early age, money wasn't so much the root of the problem as much as expectations were.

The thought of how recklessly she had behaved in the past hours ruined the moment when he mustered the last of his strength and shifted to face her, that tiny inhalation bleeding into a deep kiss as he renewed the kaleidoscope of warmth and contact.

She thought that she would have preferred him to have excused himself politely and left so that they could figure out how to move forward in their own time and individual spaces. But he must have assumed or expected something, for he had broken the kiss when she didn't respond— he stared hard and wordlessly at her before resuming and doing the same thing over and over until she gave in and kissed him back.

Still, she broke it quite quickly, grabbing the sheets around her and sitting up. "Want a coffee?"

He stared at her, probably at a loss for words.

She looked at him, feeling a bit sorry.

It seemed obvious to her that she didn't really need or want his sympathy, although she had somehow wanted his understanding in the deepest of hearts. Now that she had, she was left wondering exactly what he wanted. In all these years, there had been those moments of insecurity, the weekends that she spent wandering around the city when she had much time, the fatigue of working that barely kept her mind away from the had been the uncomfortable knowledge of her solitude and how it had bordered on loneliness more often than she wanted to admit. This encounter was more awkward than she could have imagined, his being here like this and her growing realization that she had nothing else to provide when his questions had been answered and their desire for contact fulfilled.

"It's alright. I don't want coffee."

"Right, you prefer tea." Cagalli mumbled.

"No," he said hesitantly. "I prefer to just stay like this for a bit more."

His hand reached for hers.

"Can't we?" He asked.

In the end, a single request had been enough to undo her.

When the first shards of daylight seeped into the room, she found the final ounce of courage to divulge the last secret to him.

"I wish that I'd told you sooner." Cagalli admitted. "Or someone. I don't know though— even Kira wouldn't have known how to move forward with that or how to help me. He suspects things, I suppose. He knows that I wouldn't want to work indirectly for Orb and the Seirans if I wasn't trying to do something."

"You should have told him." Athrun said. He was still breathing heavily, obviously exhausted but holding her tightly in his arms. "He would have only wanted to help."

"He couldn't possibly help. But maybe I would have felt better, getting that off my chest—like just now."

"I wanted you to tell me." He told her quietly. "I wanted to learn— to know you."

"It feels alright now." She confessed. "I don't feel alone, in a sense."

"No," he agreed. Her motivations would have gone unquestioned, although it was likely that the injunction that she claimed for would not have been granted anyway. Even now, there was a frisson of worry for what she was hoping to claim, but he ignored that and focused on the woman in his arms. "You're not alone now."

She was touched, but she turned away, forcing a bit of a laugh. "It's alright. You don't have to make assurances. I suppose you don't want to work on this private nuisance case anymore—I don't think you can."

He flinched, but then she had wanted him to. It was better for the both of them.

But then he was grabbing and holding her tightly again. "I had to know about you. I had to get over myself to know that it wasn't—it wasn't just the moment. I had to give in to every urge completely to know that it wasn't enough even then."

She studied him, wondering about what he had said. "And is it enough now?"

"Do you feel afraid?"

"No," She told him honestly. "I didn't think that I wouldn't, but I'm not any more."

"Then it's enough."

"Alright." She broke their eye contact, beginning to turn away again because she was at a loss. She had never been in a situation where she was expected to keep looking into someone's eyes—at someone like him— after moments like that.

He didn't seem to want to let go of her, but then something felt that it was comfortable enough, being in his arms. She waited for him to close his eyes, but when it seemed like he wouldn't, she mumbled, "No more questions? Let's get some sleep."

"Wait, not yet."

His gaze did not falter, even if his voice was more tentative than she could recall ever hearing. She looked at him and wondered why she hadn't seen his earnestness right from the start.

"Did you…want me?" he asked.

And she considered the way that she had regarded him with disdain for a long time. There had been that uneasy truce and that subsequent time that she'd spent working with him—she had eventually wanted to know what made him tick and she had found herself more and more at ease with his presence in her space.

Then there had been her anger and weariness hardening into a defensive cover over the years—the way she had pushed him away over and over again without knowing it. She had sensed how she was opening up to him and that he was trying to learn about her. And there had been the moment when he had stooped into her kitchen; when he spilled the salt and pepper all over the table and looked so painfully embarrassed and guilty at his clumsiness. In those moments, she had known.

"Now I do." She told him simply. "Is that alright?"

"It'll have to do," said Athrun.

And without another word, he pulled her into another kiss.

* * *

Considering her dour mood and how it probably reflected on her face, it was a wonder that Milly had to shoo away some over-eager folks who apparently wanted to strike up conversation.

There were some colleagues who kept trying to get her on the dance floor. There was some newbie with a particularly high-pitched voice that Milly had met last month. There was the bumbling, unhappy Kuzzey who had given up making puppy-eyes at one Sai Argyle and tried to sit near Milly for sympathy. There was a vaguely familiar dude in the usual suit who kept staring at her. There was apparently even a hell-bent Fllay Alster who now spotted her and currently wanted a word after failing to be featured in the next Dawn issue.

"Hey, Milly, I've been meaning to have a word with you." Fllay was certainly not sober, but she wasn't drunk enough to mince her words either. "I told my personal assistant to get you on the phone, but you blew me off when he called, right?"

"Hi, Fllay." Milly said, not even bothering to attempt smiling.

Already, Kuzzey had slipped off his high chair and made himself scarce-he was easily bullied and he never had any courage to stand up to Fllay.

It was just as well, Milly reflected, taking a generous gulp of her gin and glaring at the coaster. Once she shooed Fllay away, perhaps she would be left in peace to ruminate about her exhausting work or how she was gradually losing Tolle to sheer circumstance.

"I want you to speak to whoever- tell them that I'm going to be in the next feature."

"I can't."

"Because you're too low on the ladders?" Fllay sneered, slurring and looking every inch like the tantrum-prone, spoilt former schoolmate that Milly recalled from the old days rather than winking, beaming, perpetual media darling on covers and glossy advertisements.

Having suffered much during the week and deciding that she had not worked her ass off get this far and be blown off by some model, Milly decided not to let this go. The gin was also on her side.

"Look Fllay," Milly told her sharply. "You walked out, you know? It was a successful shoot with Meyrin and Natarle approved- hell, she actually liked it. Meyrin Hawke will be featured and that's quite settled."

"But she's a nobody from some small modelling agency!" Fllay protested.

She looked amazing in her white dress and glittering jewellery, but with her foul temper out in the open, Milly didn't find the entire ensemble too endearing.

"I'm from Blue Cosmos Models, I know Natarle and we've been working together since I debuted! God, she's almost family- she wouldn't! And that Meyrin Hawke isn't even popular- she's an unknown! I mean, for goodness' sake, I was scouted by Muruta Azrael himself, a booking like this should be a given!"

"Not after this feature." Milly had said grimly, downing her drink and signalling for another.

While it occurred to her that she could be taking out her frustrations on Fllay, it was too late for Milly to stop now.

"She's the next big thing, Fllay, you lost out because you couldn't get past your stupid self to take Kuzzey's direction. Azrael might be fully supportive of you, but you were the one who helped a newbie get there- you walked out from the shoot yourself."

Perhaps she had been a bit too blunt, for Fllay was suddenly pushing her and Milly's elbow was knocking into her new drink, tipping the lime vodka all over the bartop and on Milly's clutch.

"Don't rub it in my face, Milly!" Fllay screeched, her voice actually soaring above the crowd's noise and the beats for one numbing, crazy second.

She lunged at Milly and Milly's eyes widened, shocked at the reaction but too dazed to get out of the way. Likewise, the bartender behind her had frozen at Fllay's sudden outburst. The eagle-eyed bouncers were already fighting their way through the crowd, pushing towards them, but they weren't anywhere near.

Whatever the case, Fllay's hand wasn't going anywhere near Milly's face.

"Hey, hey," A man was saying, a huge grin spreading over his tanned face. "No need to get all physical."

"Who the hell are you?" Fllay snapped, glaring at the person who had stepped into their little spat. Considering that he was a very good-looking, strapping fellow, Milly thought that Fllay was probably very, very angry and drunk to not have simmered down immediately.

She began to flail. "Let go! Don't interrupt us!"

He grinned down at her and then looked at Milly. "And how are you?"

She stared at him, trying to recall why he looked so familiar. She had definitely caught sight of him just a while ago and noted how he seemed to be staring over all the time, but then she had probably forgotten who he was. There were people whom she had met at parties and that sort of thing with business cards being exchanged all the time. Considering how there were about a dozen of those events every week, the fellow was just one of the many in their sharp suits lounging around after work.

"Dearka Elsman," he said, noticing her lack of recognition and actually looking slightly hurt. "Remember?"

"No." She stared at him, still not really recalling much except for the exchange of cards and those martini-glass cufflinks that he had been wearing then.

He somehow cracked a bright smile. "Don't worry, we didn't do anything too funny. Shall I buy you a new drink?"

She tightened her jaw, pulling out the usual excuse. "I have a boyfriend."

"Where?" He said, a smirk coming over his face. "If you do have one, he's clearly not around much."

But Milly did not have a comeback or any exact recollection where she had met him and why he knew her name, because Fllay had reached out with her free hand and grabbed Milly's new drink. Milly flinched and almost said something, but Fllay was too fast.

"Oi!" Dearka exclaimed, stunned at the liquid that went into his face. He blinked rapidly, quite shocked at everything but still not letting go of Fllay. "You're crazy, lady!"

"Don't get in my way," Fllay snarled, trying to tug her hand away. "Stupid schmuck!"

And Fllay looked pointedly at Milly. "Why don't you join me? There's more drink where that came from."

"I don't know him." Milly mumbled, not bothering to examine the indignation on Dearka Elsman's face. This was all too much for her to bother sorting out and she figured that it was enough for a Friday night. "Just leave him alone, Fllay. Don't take it out on me or him."

She was already fumbling around in her clutch. With the haze in her head and the sting of what Dearka Elsman had offhandedly remarked still affecting her, all Milly wanted was to get out and hail a cab home.

"Guys," the sleepy-eyed bartender mumbled. "Take it outside, the bouncers are gonna come."

Indeed, they were. Panting slightly, the beefy trio were suddenly staring down at them. Very annoyed and tired, Milly flashed her Dawn card at the bartender who immediately took note. The drinks were always paid for by the company, but it provided no incentive for Milly to stay here anymore.

"There's no trouble," Dearka Elsman told the bouncers smoothly, letting go of Fllay almost casually. He mopped up the drink on his hair with a napkin, looking for all the world that he was in a completely routine, mundane exercise. "I'm just buying us all drinks, that's all."

The bouncers looked at him, staring hard.

But he smiled again and whispered something to them and they shrugged, beginning to leave. No doubt, Dearka Elsman was a regular here, which was probably why Milly had probably found him somewhat familiar. Come to think of it, she had probably met him once some time ago, in one of these party scenes and where he had clearly failed to leave any lasting impression on her.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Fllay cut in shrilly.

She was not pleased at being ignored by both Milly and the newcomer. "I'm not done with you, Milly! Hey, why don't you help me get rid of this douche- you know what kind of industry we're in- you could use some of my help and I could do with a favour right now. Tell you what-"

She turned around and slapped Dearka faster than anyone could react. While Fllay didn't have much strength, sober or otherwise, the poor man exclaimed 'oww' and began to start looking rather angry.

"Everything okay, Mr. Elsman?"

"S'alright," he muttered, glaring at Fllay. "She's just tipsy."

Part of her had to admire his patience, but Milly was already on her way out.

"That's one for you," Fllay called, clearly still deluded. "Now do me a favour and speak to Natarle!"

Milly whipped around, staring at them both. "We're not the same, Fllay. I'm not joining you in this nonsense. Go back and get some sleep—you need it."

And without wasting another glance on Fllay, Milly began to push through the crowd.

"What the hell?" Dearka said, clearly flummoxed, but somehow following right behind Milly. "What's with all the drama?"

* * *

On a normal day, Patrick Zala's routine would not have allowed him more than ten minutes in the boardroom after eleven-fifteen. The kind of man who got up at six-thirty in the morning and had his personal trainer for cardiovascular exercise meet him sharp at seven, he believed firmly in discipline and order.

As he strode down the corridors of the top floor's office, about a dozen secretaries scurried to greet him and to remind him of various engagements. Normally, he would have nodded to them and taken note, but today, he had other plans.

As one who prided himself on having no addictions to nicotine, alcohol, tobacco or even caffeine, Patrick never relied on anyone unless they were truly exceptional. He was an intelligent man and very aware of it- very few underestimated Patrick, although he would privately admit to himself that he had built his career on many people overestimating him. Because of his standing and access to the most talented, competent people in his line of work, there were many things that Patrick did not have to tolerate.

In particular, he loathed surprises.

"What do you think?" He said as he entered the executive boardroom and shut the door behind him.

Ezalia Joule had seated herself on one end of the table, casually perusing some files.

"Well, for starters," she said primly, "You could take a seat before asking me what to do about your son."

He ignored the barb and took his place at the head of the table, refusing to join Ezalia at her end. It was a large boardroom, but his voice was deep and loud enough to echo as he asked his question.

"Should our legal team handle this alone or do we require more lawyers?"

She had been reading a copy of the same letter, lips pursed in that characteristic half-smile of hers. Anyone could see that she was from a privileged family in the first place, because money rarely bought such poise and quiet self-assurance. But few were aware of how Ezalia was good-hearted, loyal and wise, even if anyone would have realized quickly that she suffered no fools.

By all measures, his long-time friend and trusted confidante was an attractive woman, but none at the board would have mistaken her for a vapid sort. One of the most successful venture capitalists and financial analysts around, Ezalia served as a current director of Genesis Holdings and was the chief of its subsidiary, Genesis Motors.

"Hold your horses," she murmured. "Are we really going to bring out the guns?"

Her former university senior was glaring at the letter of demand, as if that would erase the fact that it had been issued by his twenty-eight year old son. He took his tea with a firm hand, then set down the porcelain with the ridges in his face tunneling deeper.

"In any case, it hasn't been signed by the firm." Ezalia noted. "It's just your son's name."

"He's not my son anymore." Patrick interrupted, earning a 'tsk' from her. "It was the last thing that we agreed on."

And his friend sighed. She took a long glance at the glass window that provided a stunning view of Aprilius City. The Plants were really quite a feat of technology, but these days, Ezalia preferred lounging on some beach chair on the less crowded shores of Earth Alliances' finest places.

"Just because he doesn't want anything to do with Genesis doesn't mean that he's not a fine young man, Patrick. Maybe he just doesn't like the idea of doing business or trying to expand what you've built."

"What generations of Zalas before him built, you mean." Patrick said sharply. He adjusted his tie forcefully, although it was still so tight that its position made no difference to Ezalia's eye. "I couldn't care less if he wanted to try something else apart from this, but that ingrate fundamentally disagrees with all that Genesis stands for and told me to my face. He had Justice shares that I expected him to use and direct at least one subsidiary with, but he went and pledged the returns to some orphanage out there. He refuses to use them properly!"

"Was this inspired by his time with Lacus Clyne? She's a do-gooder sort," Ezalia mused. "She used to volunteer at the Markio Orphanage and sat on the board of the trust fund, if I remember correctly?"

Patrick scoffed. "I had hoped so— I had hoped that it was some silly affection or an effort to charm her that would pass over time. But he broke off the engagement anyway and the Justice has remained in some trustee's hands for God-knows-what charitable purpose! I swear, I wanted to shoot that imbecile!"

"You were the one who arranged for their engagement even before that, Patrick."

"Don't remind me!"

She cast a slightly amused eye over Patrick, taking in his crisp attire and neat, short hair. He was not really a vain man by any means, but he had always taken pains to maintain his fitness and retained a trim form even when age had put a bit of weight to his face and middle and turned his dark hair grey. Mostly, he had aged well, but there always seemed to be a perpetual frown lingering between his brows and around his mouth. Contrary to popular belief, he had faced many setbacks in his life and he currently considered his son to be one of the more disappointing ones.

Still, good friends did not offer pity even if they could empathise and Ezalia decided that it was time for her friend to live and let live.

Looking at the letter again, she had to hide a smile. While Athrun had probably used some precedent to draft this, as did every lawyer, there was no mistaking his presence and the reassertion of his identity in the signature. Would Lenore have been proud? Possibly.

"You did take out your gun and aim it at him." Ezalia reminded, getting up to make some tea for the seething Patrick. "Not that it was loaded though."

He was startled for a second and stared at her. "Not even my bodyguards know that."

"I'm Ezalia Joule," She announced. "I know everything. I even know about the Gladys Private Investigator Agency assignment that you paid for to keep tabs on your son."

He looked at her, quite annoyed. "You were reading my correspondences?"

"You left a report on your study table in the Junius Seven house." She reminded him. "I dropped by to visit and you told me to leave the tea on your table. Of course I saw. He's looking well, Athrun is. He must be quite a hit with the ladies—the intern that the Gladys' agency arranged to snap photos of him definitely took more photographs than required for you to keep up to date."

Patrick said nothing, but the frown deepened.

"This though," she folded the letter and put it aside. "This is a bit strange. I wonder if Dearka Elsman knows about it—seems that only Athrun is representing this Cagalli Yula, rather than Elsman & Reid."

She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Is that even allowed?"

But Patrick was already consulting his schedule book and the section with contacts noted down. "Would Ted Elsman know anything about this?"

"Unlikely." She decided. "He's probably in the Bahamas now, lounging on some longue chaise with his wife and enjoying a few pina coladas. They wouldn't bother with their son's business, even if they did provide Dearka that loan to start up the firm. "

"Shame." Patrick said, putting his schedule away. "Ted would have taken his son in hand and stopped this silly business."

"Maybe you're right," she considered. "I wonder why your boy is representing this person alone."

"It's obvious, he's trying to rub it in my nose!" Patrick burst out. His hair was tightly combed back—it always was, but now it looked liable to escape the carefully measured amounts of gel from his anger. "And for the last time, he's not my boy!"

"Come now," she chided, hiding her smile. "Think about what you're saying. If you actually meant what you said back then about cutting off all ties, you wouldn't have cared less if the magazines had found out and sold their gossip columns on that little bit of information for weeks. You hurt him, Patrick, face it. You told him that his mother would have disapproved of some nameless, faceless, silly orphanage children getting the returns from those shares— of course he got angry and walked out of that boardroom."

She could recall that day. They all could.

"Maybe I was a little rough on him then." Patrick said gruffly. "But the disappointment, Ezalia! I had so many hopes for him to take over the business! He wasn't supposed to be some nominal, sidelines shareholder—I expected him to get himself on the board and to take a proper interest in helping me run the Genesis enterprises! He would have done well, I know it, but he had to show a complete lack of interest in what I do and what all this stands for."

"Come now," she said with a sigh. "We all have children that have minds of their own— you think that I don't deal with this kind of nonsense from Yzak? I would have preferred him to stop working in that violent crimes unit back in December City."

"What's wrong with that?"

Her eyes narrowed. "I'll tell you what's wrong. This is the fellow who went through all those years of swotting and studying and won prizes in university for corporate legal studies."

"Second only to Athrun." Patrick pointed out, the beginnings of a smile working onto his stern mouth.

"Shush." She said airily, as if he hadn't spoken."I mean, Yzak could have made partner in Zaft & Zaku if he hadn't quit after a year and gone into Plant's legal service. I was so against it, but he clearly has a knack for prosecuting and that kind of underpaid, gory, dangerous investigation, so what can I do?"

"Well, he's damned good at it. And it's honorable, being in legal service." Patrick said, failing to understand all the disapproval that she felt. "You shouldn't stop him."

She shrugged, wondering why Patrick could accept her son's choice while getting all worked up over his own son's. On the other hand, it was another mystery why she could empathise with Athrun's decision to distance himself away from his father's business. A log in one's eye, she reminded herself, as compared to a speck of sand in another's.

"In any case," Patrick was saying, quite missing the point of why Ezalia was even mentioning her son. "He's got his head screwed on tightly enough. Don't worry about him."

She clucked her tongue. "That's not all, Patrick. He's gone and fallen for some bland, charmless clerk at the attorney general's and moved to her place. I mean, what could I have done?"

"Bought her off." Patrick said bluntly.

"You think I didn't try?" she shot back.

"Not with enough then," he replied.

"You'd be surprised," Ezalia said coolly. She straightened the collar of her fine, navy blue blazer and adjusted the buttons a little. "It took me that failure to control them to learn something- something that you've yet to learn, Patrick. It's not all bad that they've got their own plans— Athrun's opinions might defer from your views, but he's not a bad kid at all. Maybe he let you down with those decisions that you couldn't possibly agree with, but you've got to understand that he's his own man and you can't order him around now. Especially not after Lenore passed away."

He said nothing, frowning even harder now.

"He's always thought that it was something of your fault." She said directly. "You weren't there for all his formative years— you admitted just as much. And he wasn't trying to rebel when he chose to use his studies for something beyond what you contemplated— you know why he worked so hard and put that nose to the grinding stone."

"Damned near beat the records even in sprinting and track and field." Patrick said, a flush of pride suddenly catching onto him. "All the way through high school."

"That's just it, no? He wanted you to be proud of him, especially after Lenore wasn't around. Isn't it good that he's moved past that? Honestly, Patrick, I've resisted telling you for a long while now, but since something of yours is getting sued by some person that your boy's old and good enough to represent, you might want to reconsider cutting ties off completely."

"Still, I'm not settling." Patrick said stiffly. "Son or not."

"Nobody's asking you to," Ezalia replied pertly, not hiding her smile anymore. "Because it isn't even addressed to you— it's for the management and board of the subsidiary, Genesis Motors. You delegated it to me, remember? I'm the chief of that now, especially since I'm also the majority shareholder of Genesis Motors."

"Well, I expect you to follow my instructions." He said sharply. "I was the one who sold you those shares in the first place and made it clear to the other board members that they needed to support your directorship."

But they both knew that he was only a superior at face-value— in terms of business acumen and skills, she was subordinate to none. Besides, she was not easily threatened.

"No can do," Ezalia told him swiftly. "My duties are to serve the company's best interests, Patrick. You may be the chief of Genesis Corporations, but this subsidiary has a separate board and I head it. Unless you want to buy me out or start some proxy battle, I'll act as I deem fit. But feel free to try and oust me—I won't take it personally."

"You know I wouldn't," he admitted. There was just too much value having someone as incisive and wonderfully managerial as Ezalia Joule on the board. Buying her out would have been an expensive business and there wouldn't have been a long-term replacement as competent as she was.

"Good. The way I see it, Patrick, there's no point fighting them in court. I don't want bad publicity for Genesis Motors now that the scaffolding has been partially laid. Instead, I think I'll be giving your boy a call soon— I'd rather just pay them to shut up and take the construction. And if they're sane enough, they'll take compensation through settlement— there's no gain in throwing good money after a bad case."

Patrick looked doubtful. "They're asking for an injunction, Ezalia. If they wanted money, they would have said so."

"How many people ask for a loan when they need one, Patrick?" Her lovely eyes settled on the row of awards and accolades that Genesis Holdings had raked in over the years. Not for nothing had its shares been one of the most lucrative and highly-priced in the market for decades. "They come to the house with gifts and fruit and just the kind of thing that I don't need— and they make all sorts of small talk. But when you take out a bit of money, they suddenly just get up and leave and swear to pay back the favour some day."

"I doubt that's how it works for him. Or his client."

"It's funny, Patrick. You tell me that I didn't offer enough to my son's fiancée, and now you say that your son won't want money?"

"I know him." Patrick said stubbornly, and Ezalia wanted to roll her eyes but opted to congratulate herself for putting the point across anyway.

"Well, I suppose we've both learned the same lesson." She decided. "There is a price-tag to every person—although the price-tag isn't necessarily in dollar signs."

"What do you propose then?"

"First, we need to find this person's price-tag and decide how to buy—whether in money or through something else." She reapplied her lipstick carefully and stood up. "As for the lawyer, if he's really of Zala stock, Athrun will see exactly why a settlement is the only way for anything constructive to happen on both our ends."

"You do that then." He got up heavily, sweeping the files into his hands but leaving the original letter on the boardroom table. She watched him for a second, noting with wonder how age had made him less imperious and more tired, more saddened by things that a man of his pride and bearing did not allow him to freely admit or say. And suddenly, Ezalia was struck by a bolt of inspiration.

"Oh, and Patrick?"

He harrumphed, pausing just a little. "What now?"

"You might want to turn up for the settlement meeting when I do arrange it."

* * *

For the last week, Athrun had spent his free moments in a semi-daze, not really knowing what he was ordering even when he stood in front of the counters, not actually tasting what he was eating or drinking or even concentrating on the casual conversations with the people in the office.

Fortunately, he threw himself to the work when it was time to because habit and sheer routine would not have allowed for anything less. But even then, he counted down each hour and willfully found himself praying for time to pass more quickly. Even Vino noticed how quickly Athrun was getting through his work even though his employer had always been the "steamrolling, crazy machine-type".

"It's insane," Vino had whined to Lunamaria, not realizing that Athrun was not out of the office, but in the pantry and could overhear. "I'm not even done formatting his last set of pleadings and now he wants me to go through about two hundred pages of new case briefs that he churned up— this is a crazy pace!"

"Athrun's always been a good and fast worker," Lunamaria had pointed out, making Athrun approve of her for once.

"Not as fast as this—not before! Now we have to keep up with him."

"Maybe the client has been trying to speed things up," Luna had concluded. "Just deal with it."

Next, his partner had started sensing that something was different once again.

"Finally have a reason to go straight home instead of haunting our office these days?" Dearka said pointedly one afternoon. "I miss having you as part of our furniture, Athrun."

Athrun laughed, taking his mug from Aisha the waitress with murmured thanks. "Is this actually about Googley the goldfish living out his short life?"

"Now that you mention it," Dearka considered mournfully, "Maybe I did feel more affection for him than I let on. Or maybe it's this girl whom I keep running into."

"Running into?"

"Okay, so I basically stalk her running track. Figuratively." He waved a careless hand over the city's landscape. The Desert Tiger café certainly had a prime location and a good view. The owner was dedicated to offering the best and it was doing fairly well. Even Athrun had to admit that the coffees were quite nice.

"Not that I'm actually stalking." Dearka corrected himself. He took a huge chomp of his kebab and stared beadily at his partner. "Just so you know— I know what you're thinking."

"Go on anyway." Athrun said, smiling widely.

"See now, Milly just isn't as interested as I hoped she'd be. It's that long-distance guy of hers who's hanging her on without actually telling her to move on. I just wish that she'd give me a chance. She's something different, you know?"

"Yes, I suppose you've never come close to fidelity before." Lunamaria mumbled, apparently listening to their side-conversation.

Athrun cleared his throat and Lunamaria successfully regained her original speed and made her way to the cashier without further delay. Behind her, Vino was grumbling about something or the other and Athrun was very glad that he had taken an early lunch here with Dearka to avoid any other person's company.

Dearka looked exceptionally downcast. "I guess Milly and I are friends now. I don't know— maybe it really is Googley."

"Maybe." Athrun replied, immediately filing the new girl's name away to the section of his brain that systematically forgot unnecessary and esoteric bits of trivia. He privately gave Dearka a whole hour to get over the shock of having been friend-zoned and forgetting whoever Milly was.

Meanwhile, Dearka let out a significantly unhappy sigh. "Nah, no girl could affect me this much. I think it's Googley's passing away. It must be the thing that's really affecting me, I suppose."

Athrun stared, then decided to test the waters. "By the way, where did you bury Googley?"

"Bury?" Dearka looked at him blankly. "Oh, no, I just put him in the trash, with the onion skins—the burnable pile."

"What?"

Dearka looked affronted. "I mean, what was I supposed to do with a dead goldfish?"

"So it's actually about the girl." Athrun muttered, turning away and shaking his head.

He had to feel some sympathy, considering how good things were on his end. Surely, his satisfaction with the current happenings in his life was apparent to Dearka, who frowned and mumbled something about Athrun definitely being laid.

On Wednesday, Cagalli had arrived back earlier than he had. Having spotted her brogues on the shoe rack, he had wanted to surprise her by proudly announcing that "Chunky Monkey was on offer."

But then he had looked up at the exact instant that she stood up from the couch, greeting him in a filmy bit of panties and nothing else. His mouth must have fallen open, but before he had regained any hope of being articulate, he found the door slamming shut and his back hastily shoved against the nearest wall.

Grunting his surprise and making a questioning huff because his things had been somewhere near the door, he was instantly placated and forgot about those when her fingers easily located his belt and she was on her knees. If he had been half-hard from just seeing her, it took him but a moment to be painfully engorged and he gritted his teeth, trying not to embarrass himself.

He had only vaguely recalled feeling a tad of regret that he hadn't seen to her first, because he was perfectly aware that he wouldn't last long. It had just been too much, that sensation and that situation, considering the culmination of what seemed like—had been—months of suppressed want. Her fingers had dug into his hips, trying to steady him during the time or two when he forgot himself, but then he had forgotten the tired ache of his back and feet from the day's work.

When he had been on the verge, she released him and stood, quite pink in the cheeks and a bit unsteady like him. She had looked at him fearlessly however, and chuckled. "Wait for me, yes?"

And with that, she had surged to his lips, kissed him deeply and led him by his throbbing hardness into his bedroom.

When they had eventually made it back to the door to pick up his briefcase and the things that he had bought for dinner, he found that the Chunky Monkey had completely gone to waste. But for the first time in his life, Athrun had not harboured any negative opinion of wastage.

Earlier this week, she had brought him a huge patchwork rug that had been sourced and rejected from some shoot. He had been unconvinced by its burst of colour and the way it didn't match anything—it reminded him how empty and carelessly furnished his apartment was. She didn't seem to mind, but she had taken the initiative to start bringing little things in, placing them on the sills or near the dining table and even the large carpet. Not that he had complained about the last item at all— it was nice to tread on the carpet instead of the bare floor. And besides, she had helped him to break it in properly.

Over these two weeks, they had settled into an unspoken agreement— if he arrived early, he cooked. If she got back to his apartment first, she did. The dishes were always shared, because the general principle was that washing-up became better with companionship, as were the quiet, meandering walks and long, steaming showers. On weekends, they had gone out exploring little old streets on the outer rings or even taking day trips to the beaches. They had carefully kept out of the usual inner city rings that they haunted on weekdays from sheer necessity and work.

They sometimes had dinners on the most casual, hearty street corners that they could find, insistently avoiding establishments that might have reminded them of their weekday personas. Otherwise, they had simply locked themselves in, turned off their cells, dumped those into drawers and called for takeaway when they could remember to. It had already gone on in this manner for nearly two weeks, what with him hurrying back and trying to be earlier than her to reach his apartment.

Because she had moved in at his invitation, there was a new reason every day to rush back to his once-dreary little apartment.

It frightened him at times, he reflected, distractedly watching Dearka mope around during this lunch hour when no work could occupy them both from other thoughts. All in all, these two weeks had made him a bit insecure when he wondered if it would suddenly all melt away and her interest would wane. It made him feel shaky, exhilarated, insecure and very, very vulnerable.

And honestly, he concluded, it was all because she felt like home.


End file.
